


Splintered. Heart.

by theoraclespecialist



Category: Football RPF, Original Work
Genre: Coming Out, Family, Friends to Lovers, From Two Different Worlds, High School, M/M, Original Characters - Freeform, Sweet love story, teenage angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-07-29 12:43:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7684960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoraclespecialist/pseuds/theoraclespecialist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan Forster has sworn to himself that he must not tell anyone his secret at his new school. Owing to some traumatic experiences in the past, he is not ready to invite unwanted attention or scrutiny towards himself or his family. Yet, London is where dreams are made of and he finds himself drawn to the culture of freedom, color and endless liberty to be himself.<br/>Additionally, he falls for a classmate of his, who's the completely opposite: confident, popular, athletic and certain of his feelings and needs. His fifteen-year-old body is perhaps not ready for the influx of emotions and experiences but whose is?</p><p>Meanwhile, his father, Jamie Forster knows all too well how difficult it is to raise a child. But he cannot anticipate how difficult it could get raising an introverted teenager. His teenage years were ripped from his grasp once he learnt he would become a father and hence his only objective in life is to provide a stellar life for his son. But he must do so while tacking the shrewd corporate world of London.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dan scrutinized himself in the mirror. He had brushed his hair but decided against slathering cream on his face. That should be an acceptable balance between presentable and masculine. But would a straight boy be standing in front of the mirror for more than five minutes? Be straight, he told himself.  
“Danny!” His father rapped on the door. “Taking a long time, aren’t you?”  
Dan pressed down his hair one last time and let his father in. His father raised his eyebrows casually and opened the mirror cabinet. “You think I need a shave?”  
Dan shrugged and left the washroom.  
He rummaged through his closet and picked a light blue t-shirt. He paired it up with a pair of dark brown trousers. As he was tying his shoelaces, his dad paused by the door. “You don’t want to make a strong first impression?”  
“Not really,”  
During breakfast, he chewed slowly, each bite driving him closer to his first day at the new school. “On a scale of 1 to 10, how nervous are you?” his dad asked him as he poured the juice.  
“10,” he answered honestly, sipping his juice.  
“Really?” his dad said. “Because for me, it’s about a hundred,”  
“Why? I thought you wanted this. Besides, it’s for money,”  
His dad chuckled. “I’ve worked many an odd job for money, son. This is more than money, it’s a dream,”  
“A dream to sit on a desk all day?”  
“I might get a rolling office chair!” His dad defended cheerfully. “But yeah, you got the gist of it. Working on a desk and earning a pay check...that is no less valid than any other dream,”  
Dan snorted and stuffed the rest of the toast in his mouth. His dad insisted on dropping him to school, even though he had shown him the walking route a day earlier. The ride to school took barely five minutes but the school traffic slowed them down at the end. Two hundred meters away from the gate, his dad stuck his head out of the window and surveyed the jam.  
“You think you can foot it from here?”  
“I guess...”  
His stomach churned. He thought about the pack of parents and teenagers whose eyes would wander over to the bumbling new kid. At first, they would try to gauge where he was from, and then they would move forward to his gait and his fashion and try to categorize him into a clique. A few would examine if he was worth their time, if underneath the cluelessness simmered the potential of cool.  
“Have a great day, sweets,” His dad smiled, putting his hand on his son’s slumped shoulder. “Do not be afraid to talk to people. That’s how you know who’s friendly and who’s a plonker,” He leaned closed and turned his cheek. “Give Daddy a kiss,”  
Dan looked around and pecked his dad. Lumbering towards the gate, he imagined an invisible scanner flashing over his body. By the gate, a plaque read ‘Graham Perry Academy’. A long-haired guy wearing baggy beige trousers was showing a video clip on his phone to his bemused friend. A couple of short stature were making out against the wall. A tall, blonde woman in her forties was reproaching her impassive son over skipping class.  
Perhaps there was a chance that he could blend in unnoticeably after all.  
He slogged into the premises and was about to ask someone the directions to the front office before he observed another adult striding out of an elegant glass door at the corner of the first building. Most adults usually had business in the main office so it was likely that that was the front office. He turned and followed the path. Inside, phones were ringing; the secretaries and office aides were scurrying about with files and stationary so no one had noticed him entering.  
Dan did not want to disrupt anyone, lest they shun him and turn him toward another employee. The petite Asian woman behind the first counter was stapling sheets together and he figured she was the least busy among them. “Hello. I am new here,”  
She looked up, her forehead wrinkled. “Name?”  
“Dan,” he said. “Uhm, Daniel Fortster,”  
She asked him to spell it and inserted it into the computer. She spent a few minutes clicking and typing as Dan took in the room. A few students were sitting and waiting in the next room; their ages ranging from the demure entrant to the brash upperclassman. A woman who had her hair tightly tied in a bun was slamming paper into the copy machine.  
“Drama or computer science?”  
Dan turned back to the lady, unsure of what she had said. She read his confusion and clarified, “For the elective,”  
“Computer science?” he asked but did not receive a confirmation.  
Within a few minutes, the printer sounded and she pounded across the room to fetch his schedule. She placed it on the counter and pointed to it with a pen. “Your break is at 11:30, with the year tens and elevens. Your computer class will be held at H-456,” she scribbled on the paper. “That’s the Hershey building, it’s a bit further away from your regular classes so be sure to ask someone. And...that’s about it,”  
Dan gulped as he absorbed the details of his schedule. “Thank you, Ms...”  
“Kim,” she answered. “Don’t mention it. Have a good first day,”  
The fish-out-of-water feeling could not be exaggerated as he moved through the hallways in search of his first class. Coventry it was not. Clusters of teenagers clumped along the hallway. He matched his pace with that of the crowd, so as to avoid any attention but a few eyes rolled towards him anyways. Most were simply curious, a few analytic and many friendly. He pursed his lips and moved forward, drowning out them out.  
His first class, Geography, had already started by the time he found the classroom. He knocked on the door and his presence allowed for the students to chatter as the teacher, a thick-bespectacled man with slightly greying hair, called him over to his desk and skimmed through his schedule. He instructed him to take the empty seat in the middle of the classroom and Dan proceeded through the aisle, drawing a whistle and a few snorts. He sat down and took out his notebook, the girl beside him tossing him a warm smile. He grinned awkwardly and turned his attention to the teacher. He was rambling about sedimentary rocks and even though most people in the classroom, especially those beyond the second row, were staring blankly forward or slouched down in boredom, Dan chose to write down what he was saying in his notebook verbatim. 

 

Just as his son was assaying through his first day at his new school, Jamie Forster also held his share of doubts over his first day at work. He was not fifteen but it was still early days for his career in law and he knew how callow he might come across to the older, hardened professionals who had been tackling legal cases in the most significant city in the world: London.  
Archer, Marquez and Palmer was one of the most reputable law firms in the city, regarded as not only formidable for their shrewdness in corporate cases but also their stellar record of wins in criminal cases. As soon as he shuffled into the eight floor with his messenger bag and a cluelessness evident on his face, he asked to see Matthew Archer, his immediate boss. They exchanged a few words of Jamie’s responsibilities as a junior lawyer and discussed the ongoing TSB case in which a woman was suing the company for sexual harassment. Jamie was dismissed and his boss’s secretary directed him to an empty desk and asked if he’d like a coffee.  
“Coming right away,” she smiled. “I’ll get someone to come as soon as possible with your new computer, phone connection and your supplies, whatever you need,”  
Jamie dropped down on the chair. “Thank you. Do you know where I can find the team working on the TSB case...it’s about...”  
“Oh, of course,” She pointed to the hallway. “Down to your right, there is a conference room. They might tease you a bit but don’t take it personally,” she chuckled and minced back to her desk.  
Jamie peered through the stained glass window of the conference room and observed a heated debate between two of the attorneys. He pushed open the door and four pairs of eyes shot him with irritated glances.  
“Hello,” Jamie cleared. “My name is Jamie. I’m the new junior associate here. I’m sure Mr. Archer told you all about me...” he said, as he prodded inside.  
“Course,” One of the three men, who had shaggy black hair, a tanned brown skin and a mole on his forehead, said. “Come sit down,”  
“You lot seem delighted,” remarked Jamie as he raked over the faces of the people in the room.  
“Not really. I’m always this happy when a black, pregnant woman is replaced by the young, white graduate male from Leeds,” said the woman sarcastically. She was wearing a full-sleeved white shirt, a pearl necklace and had straight, brown hair that cascaded over her shoulders.  
“Don’t mind Michelle. She doesn’t like pretty boys who can contend with her,” said the man in a loose-fitted blue suit. Despite the current of snarky humor in the room, the men introduced themselves as Miguel, Walter and Brian.  
Michelle was obviously less amicable but even she managed to pull a flat smile as she slid a file across the table to Jamie. “Be in line,” she commanded. “Otherwise, you’re in the lawsuit I’m filing against this company for gender-based harassment in the future,” she raised her eyebrows in caution. “Be sure of it,” 

 

Dan was zipping his backpack when the girl beside him, the one who had smiled at him earlier, turned toward him. He looked up at her and she was smiling once again. “Hey. What’s your name?”  
“Um,” he bit his lip. “Dan,”  
“Well, hello Dan,” she extended her hand. “I’m Alexa,”  
Dan shook her hand, a bit unsure about the formality of their introduction. She took it upon herself to begin conversing. “How’s your first day?”  
He shrugged. “It’s just my first class,”  
“Ugh, of course,” she groaned. “I’m stupid like that,”  
They stood up and began shuffling out, the last ones leaving the classroom. The hallway was brimming with the noise of laughter, slamming lockers, people flurrying through. “So what classes do you have?”  
“Uhh...” he struggled to remember what was printed in his schedule and he did not want to put her through watching him struggle to fish it out of his backpack. “Physics...trigonometry, computer science. I think I have psychology...”  
“Wow,” she said. “You’re like the guy on the wheelchair,”  
“Stephen Hawking,” Dan corrected. “And thanks, he’s, like, the most prolific scientist on earth right now,”  
He surprised himself by uttering a full, coherent sentence. He reminded himself that it was not, in fact, a lack of social skills that impelled him onto reticence but a conscious, calculated choice.  
“And what about your English? Who do you have?”  
Dan knew that he did not have this by memory so he shook his head. “I don’t know. It was a man, though,”  
“Very helpful,” she said mockingly.  
She grabbed his crumpled schedule as soon as he pulled it out. “Oh crap,” she clicked her tongue. “At least we have French together,”  
He nodded his head, hesitant about expressing his surprise about making a new friend. If that was where this exchange was headed, that is.  
“But your trig class is right next to my econ,” she said, as she studied the schedule. “Do you want me to give you a ride?”  
Dan chuckled. “You make it sound like it’s a piggyback,”  
He bit in tongue in fear of her response but she laughed. “I haven’t worked out for awhile, so no,”  
Dan discovered that the school was much more intricate than the brown, brick-walled building he entered in the morning. The hallway on the second floor continued into a transparent pedestrian bridge that connected to another building. It was not just one building; there were at least five or six and it afforded the students to bask and loiter under the sun as much as possible.  
Alexa dropped him off at the door of his class. As she reached her classroom a few doors down, a female friend grabbed her and the two immersed themselves in an animated conversation. Dan frowned; he had hoped that she was a loner like him, so she would more willing to initiate and maintain a friendship with him.  
He managed to not speak to anyone else for the next few classes. Trigonometry had been a piece of cake as he finished his worksheet within five minutes but he chose to wait for another fifteen minutes so he could hand it in with the others. Physics was more challenging but the continuous concentration that poured through him as he recreated diagrams onto his notebook shielded him from anyone approaching him.  
Not that anyone would. This was not like his previous high school, in which the whole year was shot with the pulse of speculation when a new kid arrived. Most people here noticed but they did not approach; they let him be. They were generous folks; they were giving him what he had hoped for.  
But like any other secondary in the United Kingdom, there were cliques visible in the cafeteria lawn. Not so much based on appearance, ethnicity or personality types, the differences were not explicit. There was not a geek squad or a cheerleader posse in sight; the people on the tables were categorized on the basis of, as Dan stipulated, their energies. It might have been a very divine way of dissecting their social environment but it was the least arbitrary. He could pinpoint the athletes’ table, not by their bulky built or their kids, which none but one of the boys were possessing, but their loud, roguish camaraderie. Similarly, the popular girls’ table was the one next to the athletes’, as evidenced by their high-spirited, flirty vibe with the boys. The academically-inclined were soft, tidily dressed and were helping each other with assignments. But the other groups were harder to define; they were of diverse cultures, hobbies and talking points. He had no way of knowing which table would judge him the most or the least; it could have been any of them and none of them.  
Dan waded through the line for a chicken salad, some chocolate milk and a banana. He skimmed the expanse of the lawn for an empty spot but the agony was cut off by Alexa tapping his shoulder.  
“Were you actually searching for me?” he asked, a bit stupefied.  
“I didn’t have to. You make it pretty obvious,”  
Dan was thrown into his pool of self-consciousness as he followed Alexa into the labyrinth of restless teenage action. She knew she was going and he could only hope that her friends were as casually accepting as she seemed. She set down her lunch bag near a table by a ramp leading to the second floor. The two other girls on the table looked up and smiled. “Look what I got for spring break, folks,” Alexa said, waving Dan into their circle. “Dan, Lisa, Divya. Lisa, Dan. Divya, Dan,” she rambled off as he nodded to the girls gently.  
“We saw you from here. You looked like a little stray dog!” cried Divya, her face puckered.  
“I guess I was searching for a place,”  
“Of course you’d have found empty spots,” Alexa said. “It’s the company that matters,”  
Dan chuckled as he placed a spoonful of salad into his mouth. The girls began talking among themselves.  
“So guys, I saw Miller talking to Tyra. She looked really upset,” said Alexa.  
“I’m sure he won’t flunk her, though. She got, like, stellar marks for the first term PowerPoint project,” said Divya.  
“But you can’t just curse at the teacher in front of everyone. Especially Millie; he doesn’t stand for that crap,” opined Lisa. She had dirty blonde hair and thick brown glasses, shrouding most of her face. “I reckon she’s not going to be able to dig her way out of this one,”  
“It’s not like she gets in trouble all the time,” argued Divya.  
As they gabbled, Dan wheeled around his head to further observe the dynamics of the lawn. His eyes gravitated towards the athletes and the surrounding girls and he had not timed how long he had been gaping at them till Alexa’s voice cracked through. “Oi, so tell us about yourself,”  
Dan looked down at his milk and inhaled. “I’m from Coventry and I like...reading,” There was no way he was going to be able to describe himself honestly and come out as appealing. “My dad just completed his training as a solicitor and got a job at a firm so we moved...uhm,”  
“Surely you’re more interesting than that!” said Divya.  
Dan said nothing and slumped down.  
“Let him off, Divvy,” Alexa said sympathetically. “Just a poor sod trying to test the waters,” She turned her face to Dan. “Have you seen through the list of clubs and activities you could join? We’ve got the Debating Society, of which I am a member, of course. There is the Art Souls, the Spellermen, the Dance Team, there are a whole bunch of sports, if you’re interested...”  
“Ew,”  
Dan braced for the horrid reaction but the girls broke out into laughter. “Okay, so he’s got more than five brain cells, good good,” said Divya.  
“100 billion, for anyone who’s concerned,” rectified Dan cheekily.  
“So we got ourselves a candidate for the Spacepunks,” said Lisa.  
“Will they at least have shiny costumes?” asked Dan.  
Though inadvertently, he floated into the rhythms of their conversation. It helped that the girls were amused by his unpredictable temperament, timid one second, smart the next, and their efforts to draw more personality out of him were helpful. By the end of the lunch hour, they had folded him into the gossip bubbling under their year. Most of the names and faces had coalesced into his mind but it was thrilling to slowly drown into the social ocean that was to become his home for the next two or four years.  
As Alexa dropped him off to his next course, English, she offered, “Do you want to come over to mine’s after school?”  
“I...” he stammered. “I’m supposed to go home straight after school. I don’t know if I...”  
“It’s not a big deal, Dan,” Alexa insisted. “I live just three streets down and would your dad not want you to make a new friend on your first day?”  
“Clever, aren’t you,” Dan clenched his mouth and smirked.  
She bid him goodbye and skipped out of the hallway. Dan regarded the classroom apprehensively; this was a general, mandatory course so there was no particular trait or behaviour type that could somewhat define the students who take the class, such as Physics or Trigonometry. The unruliness of the class was blatant; instead of students sitting and chatting softly as they waited for the professor to arrive, there was a big group of boys and girls lingering in the middle of the room. Dan recognized a few of them from the cafeteria lawn; the athletes and the dance team was how he had classified them.  
He dreaded the noise but they could not care less about the scrawny kid passing them by. Dan glanced at them and beheld the individual around which the commotion and the laughter transpired. He was tall, fair and had short brown hair. The lower half of his face curved to a chiselled chin supporting clear, light-pink lips stretched in an exuberant smile. Recalling that Dan had a tendency to stare for too long, he quickly grabbed a seat at the back. Pretending to revise his notes, he eavesdropped on them.  
“You wouldn’t know the offside rule if it fuckin’ hit you on the head with a hammer,”  
“Fuck off,” someone said. “I said when you pass it too early and you’ve already got a chap up front and...”  
“You’re literally repeating everything I’m saying, goddamit,”  
“You should come to more of the games. No better way to learn it,”  
Their raucous gathering dissolved as the professor entered the class. The guy at whom Dan had been ogling stood up and shuffled to the back of the room. He took a seat beside him and Dan’s pulse quickened. He tightened his grip on his pen and stared down at his notebook forcefully.  
“You got a pencil, mate?”  
Dan was certain the boy was not talking to him so he refused to look up. Finally, the temptation could not contain him any longer and he turned to his left to face the boy. He was looking at him, his pure blue-gray eyes gleaming at him.  
“I lent it to my friend and the bugger lost it. Do you have an extra?”  
Dan gulped. “Sorry. I only have one,”  
“No worries,”  
The boy asked the same question to the person sitting to his left. Once the temptation had been released, it could not be captured. The class began and Dan would glimpse at him in intervals of five seconds. He extended it to ten once he feared he was inviting suspicion. Their English teacher, Ms. Parkin, had black, coily hair and a low, deep voice with which she read the passages in their book.  
Thirty minutes into the class, Ms. Parkin shut her book and began writing down questions on the board. She turned around and spoke, “We all know everyone is dog-tired by now so your weekly assignment can be done in pairs. I want you and your partner to pick passages from the reading and answer these questions for each passage. 1000 words for each passage and please divide it fairly among yourselves,” She tucked her hair back and took a seat. “Pair up with the person sitting next to you,”  
The two people on his right had already paired up and he knew that the boy would surely find someone else for himself but as he looked to his left, that boy was looking at him expectantly.  
“Hey, my name is Eric,”  
“Dan,” he said. “I’m new here,”  
“Oh, nice,” he smiled. “Hope you don’t run away after your first week, like many before you have,”  
Dan chortled nervously and pointed to the board. “Have you read through Animal Farm?”  
“Nope. Couldn’t go beyond the fifth page,” he said and looked forward questioningly at his friends. “Um, Dan...how about you read it for me and we can meet up after school or something and go over the answers?”  
“Sure,” he said, clearing his throat. “I can’t today, though,” he added as he reminded Alexa’s invitation.  
“Later this week, I guess,”  
Eric stood up from his desk and joined his friends at the front. They welcomed him by shoving him down and patting him on his back and shoulders. A girl shifted her chair closer towards him and placed her hand on his knee.  
Dan turned his gaze back onto his notebook and bit his lip. The rush of feelings clambered up to his throat and scratched it dry. Inside his chaotic head, he chanted the phrases he had drilled into himself earlier in the morning, reminding himself over and over again that they were for his own safety and well-being. But as he glanced at Eric once again, he knew that his body might not be able to withstand the onset of an infatuation. 

 

Jamie was reading through the testimony of the plaintiff when Michelle alerted him by slapping the table. “Up for a break?”  
She led him out of the conference room. “Did you read a manual on how to look like a rookie?”  
Jamie grinned. “Maybe you will take pity on me and do most of my work for me,”  
“What is this, some kind of secondary school project?” she scoffed.  
Downstairs, they walked past the reception and exited the building through a side door. The adjacent street was lined with food trucks, clothing stores and employees of the firm. Michelle lit a cigarette and proffered a joint to Jamie.  
“I don’t smoke,”  
Her brows lifted and she shoved the cigarette back into her purse. “How’d you get through your degree then?”  
“By not smoking,”  
She scoffed. “Smart,” She took a drag. “Let me guess, a family member died of lung cancer. Or your brother choked on a joint and fell off a cliff?”  
“Don’t recall either of those happening but interesting thought there,”  
Jamie bought himself a wrap and began stuffing it down as Michelle moved on to her second cigarette. “So you do have unhealthy habits?” She smirked as he licked the mustard off his lips.  
He shrugged in admission.  
He offered her the last bite of his sandwich. She winced but changed her mind and reached out for it. As she munched through her portion, he said, “I was a chain smoker. A heroin addict,”  
Her eyes widened.  
“A flourishing alcoholic. You wouldn’t have found me awake, much less functional,” he said. “But I was letting my family down. So I had to buck up and fix myself,”  
She swallowed. “You animal,”  
Jamie trod forward. “If you say so, Michelle,”  
She chucked away the wrapper and caught up to him. She wanted to light another one, as a cool-off but thought against it. Jamie grinned, knowing that maybe, just maybe, he had made his first impression on her. 

 

As soon as the teacher dismissed them, Dan found Alexa waiting for him outside, leaning against the wall, browsing through cell phone. He stepped over to her. “God, Archie takes a long time, doesn’t he?”  
“I wouldn’t know,” said Dan as the pair began ambling out of the building.  
The final bell rang through the halls and was accompanied by the hustle among the students. They were laughing, wrestling, falling, dancing, playing music, and kicking balls, chatting with their friends. Dan beheld every face caught in his line of vision and tried to match it to that of Eric. They might have had those eyes, or the straight lips but they all lacked the confidence, the gentleness, the beauty that he possessed in spades.  
Alexa’s house was as close to the school as she had advertised. Within three crossings and a conversation of how Alexa had been grinding at the Debating Society for some panel time, they were at her house. Her mother opened the door for them. Alexa was dismissive and longed to drag Dan to her room but her mother, Rachel, halted them both to have a cordial conversation with Dan. He answered to her questions politely and seeing that he did not have the interest or the insight to contribute to the conversation, she let them go, reminding her daughter to leave the door open.  
“She badgers all of my friends, for your information,” complained Alexa as she flung her bag on the bed.  
Her room spoke for every other teenage girl in the world: floors and bed strewn with clothes, clutter of cosmetics by the mirror, posters of bands and actors hung on the walls, a train of photo frames by the bed, the colours pink and blue emerging through most empty spaces. Dan found a spot by the bed next to the dresser and sat down daintily.  
Alexa paddled towards him, swerved and grabbed a nail polish off by the mirror. She slumped down across him and raised her knee to her chin.  
“So did you manage to snog anyone? Laura Mooney is in your English, isn’t she?”  
“How do you fill the gaps here, without brushing over your skin?” He marvelled at how seamless she daubed the colour onto her silky toenail. He lowered his upper body so as to observe a reasonably challenging task.  
“You basically...” she spread the colour around and pulled it downward to fill the gap. “Just wiggle around, you know. Besides, if a little spills on the skin, it doesn’t matter. You can rinse it off,”  
After painting her nails, she switched on her Itunes playlist. As the music thrummed through her speakers, she moved closer to him, linking her shoulder with his. “So you really did not find anyone attractive your first day?”  
Of course he did and the person had seized his mind right then. But he knew what Alexa was roving around and he could not risk passing on a sliver of hope her way. “Nope,” he answered curtly.  
She placed her hand on his thigh and leaned closer. “Are you sure?” she whispered, her breath splashing against his ear.  
“Um,” His heart drummed against his chest and his lips trembled. “I’m gay,”  
She pulled away. Dan looked at her and she had gone red, visibly embarrassed. Dan lowered his eyes and pouted at the bed, the awkwardness hanging over them like a balloon.  
Finally, she sighed. He looked at her in trepidation but she grinned. “We better get you a nail polish, then,”


	2. Chapter 2

Dan was ashamed of how quickly he had defied the promise he had made to himself. The benefits of having told Alexa his secret within hours of knowing her had already emerged; when he went back home and ruffled through the books in his backpack, he found two bottles of nail polish, black and blue. Of course, he wouldn’t risk trying to experiment with them on his own so he tossed them back in.   
Owing to his bond with Alexa, he was less nervous his second day. However, it remained to be seen whether the bond was just her attempt to test the new guy out, a common strategy carried out in schools, as per Dan’s experience, or an actual signifier of a friendship. His qualms were somewhat quenched when she found him at his locker and said, “Did you like my surprise?”  
Dan whispered. “You know I can’t do it at home. My dad likes to check up on me,”  
“Okay, we will do it today after-school. Your flat will be empty, right?”  
Dan reluctantly agreed to host her at his flat for the afternoon. Beneath the multiple layers of doubt lied the crust of excitement. He worried if he should be admitting Alexa into his deepest curiosities or whether he was ready to explore them himself. Alexa flew away before he could vocalize his concerns.   
His heart sunk when Eric sat at the front in English. His disappointment was alleviated, however, when Eric sought him out after class. Dan was dating his notes when a tall figure blocked the aisle near him.   
“I’m free tomorrow afternoon,” said Eric.   
Dan forced to avert his eyes away from his towering body. “Sure. Your place or mine?”  
“We can just meet in the library,”  
Eric reproached himself for suggesting that they were somehow close enough to visit each other’s houses. He swept his books off the table and into his backpack “Sounds good. So I will see at around three?”  
“You got it,” Eric flashed a quick smile before galloping out of the room.   
The anxiety over conversing with him the following day was starting to bate. Dan was still aware of the swelling that befell his chest every time he caught sight of Eric but having talked to him a few times reiterated that he was only human and that Dan possessed basic social abilities after all.   
Alexa tagged along on his walk back home. He had never had much of an opinion for his flat, considering it was new and he was still acclimating to the ambiance of the big city, but as Alexa stepped inside and gawked at the ceiling and the empty space in the living room, it dawned on him that an empty flat was more of a privilege than a cause for loneliness.   
They settled into the same positions as they had in Alexa’s room, only this time Dan was the one getting his toenails painted. She worked diligently, not even bothering to question what they were doing. After his right foot was done, she straightened up. “What do you think?”  
Dan took his time in appraising the paint job, but really, the pop of colour on his usual pale skin sent a buzz through his skin. He could not help but smile. “Can you do the other foot?”   
She laughed and obliged him. After she painted his fingers, they took a few photos of his freshly-emblazoned nails. Before he could admire them for too long, Alexa decided to ransack his computer and found a Katy Perry playlist that he thought he had concealed through levels of folders. She turned up the volume and began singing along. At first, he watched her but then she yanked him to his feet and for the next thirty minutes, the room turned into a karaoke hall. The orange sky washed into the darkness and the evening set upon them.   
Nestled among a fort of pillows, they were into twenty minutes of an episode of the Voice when Dan paused his computer and turned to Alexa. “Do you know Eric?”  
“Eric Bunton?”  
“Tall, short hair...”  
“I know who you’re talking about!” She lightly whacked on him on his shoulder. “He is the centre-forward for the school football team,”   
Dan tugged on his bottom lip.   
“Everyone has a crush on him, don’t worry,” she reassured him. “I do, too. But it’s not serious, you know. It’s just because he’s incredibly fit and handsome. I could totally stop if you ...”   
It did not matter to him anyways; Eric was as attainable to him as a moon rock was to a fish swimming hundreds of feet underwater. Even discounting the preposterous assumption that he could like boys, there was no way he would stoop to someone on level with Dan. Dan dropped the conversation and they resumed their episode.   
His dad returned home and was taken aback at seeing a girl in Dan’s room. He had got take-out from a Thai restaurant near his office and offered some to Alexa. The three gobbled their dinner at the table and Alexa tried to rouse a political discussion with Jamie as part of her research for her Debating Society. She left after dinner, winking at Dan before scampering down the stairs.   
“She seemed nice,” Jamie said coyly, picking up the boxes off the table.   
“Yeah,” Dan said as he rambled into the kitchen. He grabbed a rag from the corner and accidently revealed his newly-dyed nails to his dad.   
Jamie raised his eyebrows with interest. “She did that?”  
Dan nodded unsurely.   
“She’s very persuasive, then, isn’t she?” Jamie laughed. “Something about girls that age...they are a force of nature,”   
Dan felt relief flooding over him as he got about to wiping the table. Little did his father know that his relationship with Alexa was not only platonic but was actually enabling his true self. He knew this because he stared at his nails only every five seconds. 

 

He dragged through the next day in wait for his meeting with Eric in the library. Every class was an assault on his patience, every minute dragged his conscious through the limits. He did not even bother listening in Lisa’s narration of what had occurred in her Chemistry class in the morning. He was too busy quelling the hole that had spread through his insides.   
He reached the library five minutes ahead of schedule. Eric was nowhere in sight so he grabbed a seat close to the door and glanced at every individual creaking through the door. Finally, Eric came in and paced over to Dan. “It’s a pretty shit spot here. Let’s go inside,”   
Dan let Eric lead him through the library as they crossed by bookshelves, computer tables and the check-out table to settle at a corner by the window. “This is what I call a view,” Eric declared, pointing out the window.   
The view was of the giant, green football field and multiple players darting around a ball. Dan admitted the view was stunning but not of the field. He pulled out his copy of Animal Farm and notes he had taken in class, along with the set of questions they were to work on for the project. Eric watched the game outside and Dan straightened the pages, feeling a bit unsettled.   
“Um...” he mumbled. “Do you want to work on the questions?” He did not expect Eric to be putting in assiduous work into the project but seeing how he actually set up a time and place to consult over the assignment, Eric should be more interested.   
“Of course,” he said, even thought his eyes were glued to the window.   
His noncommittal posture was starting to grate Dan. He coughed and flipped through the book. “Eric?” he asked. “Have you read the book?”   
Eric finally turned to him. “I thought you were going to do it,”   
“I have but...” Dan slouched down. “You need to know what happens to answer the questions,”   
Eric shrugged.   
“Look, if you just wanted me to do the whole assignment, there was no need to meet here today,” Dan said disappointedly. He was not just disappointed because it meant him having to do the assignment by himself but it also burst the bubble he had created for Eric in his head, within which his infatuation blossomed and grew.   
“C’mon mate...” Eric said. “I’m just a bit stretched here. I’m supposed to be out there today but I’m struggling with a bit of everything at the moment. I want to do better at school, I do...but I also want to be scoring goals out there,”  
Dan repeated back what he said in his head and yet he felt unsatisfied. “It’s sad and understandable... but that did not answer my question,”   
Eric grinned. “My bullshit didn’t bait you, I see,”   
“You know what...” Dan clicked forward the nip of his pen. “I will just work on this myself. It’s not a big deal,”   
Eric didn’t protest and did not embroil himself in this inconvenience any further. Dan took it as his affirmation and he set about doing the assignment on his own. He tried to convince himself it was better this way; at least he wouldn’t have to halt every five minutes to impel Eric to write down something he would have disagreed with or scraped anyways. A fairly loud group of students had seated themselves on the adjacent table and Eric waved at them.   
Eric spent his time by watching the game, scrolling through his phone and shaking his head to the music that blasted through his headphones while Dan spent his by marking pages, writing down notes, looking up explanations at the back and formulating answers as a rough draft. As much as he thought it would be distracting, what with Eric’s presence and the babble in the background, once he was able to calm himself, he was able to plunge into his work comfortably.   
However, just as he was about to begin writing the answer to the fifth question, Eric said, “So are the ten commandments allusions to the bible?”   
Dan lowered his brows. “Have you been reading the book?”  
“The Wikipedia summary,” he answered. “But if they’re about the bible...maybe you could connect those to how the rules set up by religion are really...just convenient for the people drawing them up. See, because the pigs modify the...”  
Dan grinned, impressed that Eric had at least put some effort into comprehending and analyzing the text. “Yes, that’s partially correct. Orwell is actually trying to satirize, which is basically trying to ridicule the principles behind communism. I don’t personally think he was trying to blast communism but rather, he was talking about the history with which they were defending their stance,”   
Eric gaped at him. “You’re really smart,”  
Dan felt himself flushing so he swung back into his hill of paperwork. Only Eric’s fascination had been roused and he kept poking back in with his husky voice. “I’m guessing you’re alright in maths and science and stuff,”   
Dan tipped his head. “What are you getting at?”  
“Um...” Eric hesitated. “I need someone to tutor me for those subjects. You can obviously say no but my marks are pretty shite and I need to get them over the line so I can continue playing and my mum gets off my back,”   
Dan was caught. On one hand, the prospect of spending more time with Eric, even on academic terms, was something he could have only imagined beyond this one-time assignment, but he was also at the risk of being used as a homework mule for Eric while he bounced off to play football with his friends. Dan spent a good five minutes contemplating the offer as he wrote down the rest of the answers on a proper plain-white sheet. Finally, he straightened up and looked at him sharply.   
“I have a few conditions,” Dan asserted. “You’re going to have to be willing and committed. I’m not going to have you wasting any time. I will not be doing any of your work for you. And there is no way...”  
“Jeez, you sound like a prof,” sniggered Eric. “You got it, you got it, boss,”  
Dan sighed. “I don’t want to be a mule,”  
“You sure?” Eric asked. “A mule with pink nail polish would get me a lot of views on YouTube,”   
Dan covered his fingers self-consciously. “My friend Alexa was just messing with me here,”  
Eric held his hands straight up. “No judgment. We all do crazy stuff for girls don’t we?”  
Dan smiled and leaned back. A friendship had begun bubbling over the surface, he could tell but yet, a confirmation of sorts that Eric was interested in girls and endeavoured to impress them in the present tinged his mind with an acute shot of displeasure he knew would diffuse through later. 

It didn’t surprise Jamie that he and Michelle were going out for drinks. What surprised him that Michelle was the one to ask him out. “It’s not a date,” she alerted him after he said yes.   
Dumping their heap of work on their desks, they took off on the tube. Jamie suggested they go to the bar closest to the office but Michelle had a niche venue in mind. He was expecting a hipster, graffiti-laden basement-turned-bar with neon lights, people wearing long fitted trench coats and bright trainers and hypnotic electronic music but the only niche element of the bar was its assortment of flavoured beers.   
They ordered their beers, Jamie a coffee-style pint, Michelle something tropical and strong. “This is your special bar?” questioned Jamie, scanning the room.   
“Just wanted to show you a bit of London,” she smirked. Their drinks arrived and they clicked their glasses. “How do you like the big city?”   
“You’re going to get bored, you know, treating me like a village idiot,”   
She snorted. “Well, what’s the story?”  
“What do you mean, ‘what’s the story’. You never met a thirty-year old moving to London for a job?”  
“Everyone has a story, don’t they?”  
Jamie guzzled half of his beer in one crack. “It’s a shitty one,”   
“I’ve got time,” she said, as she sipped out of her glass.   
He sighed and pursed his lips. “I was fourteen and already skipping school and getting high on the daily. My girlfriend comes up to me one day and tells me she’s pregnant,”  
Michelle widened her eyes.   
“Yeah, we were the usual bunch,” he responded. “I was only fifteen when my son was born. The first few weeks, she lived in my house and we were making a mess of things. Fighting every day, crying, shouting...it was awful. A month after, I come back home to find a note from her, saying that she needed to do what she did, that I’d make a better parent than her and that she couldn’t let her life get away from her. And she was gone,”   
“You’re serious?”  
“That’s how people become single parents, only I never thought it happened to guys as much. I took it hard the first couple of years. As I mentioned, drugs, alcohol, a few jail stints...if I didn’t have my family, I don’t know what’ve happened to my son,” he gulped down the rest of his drink. “When I was about twenty, I’d realized that my son needed me to be there for me. As an involved, caring parent. So I decided to finish school, go to uni, work a number of odd jobs to sustain the both of us and get a law degree,”  
“Here you are,” Michelle said, smiling.   
“Here I am,”   
They ordered another batch of drinks and her attitude softened as she became inebriated. Her shoulders relaxed, she laughed more and a flirtatious glint materialised in her gaze that only grew brighter through the night. 

 

Dan had sent Eric a friend request on Facebook. He figured that it was less formal than exchanging actual numbers but they would need to contact each other for setting up tutoring sessions in any case. As soon as Eric accepted his request, Dan smiled and began exploiting the access he had obtained to Eric’s profile. His popularity was reflected through the hundreds of ‘likes’ marking all of his photos and posts. Every week, there were a couple of photos in which he was tagged, where he and his friends were simply getting hammered at the pub or frolicking with girls in parties. Dan felt the torch of jealousy kindling in his heart but there was an undeniable thrill of learning more about Eric through his social media presence. It fed into his fantasy that he was weaving, of having experienced those moments with him, under the lights, with the vodka shots. It gave him the context and the setting through which he could implant himself into those environments.   
The front door to his flat opened and he heard the whispers of a female. Then he heard his father’s voice shushing her. Dan had learnt his role in these situations quite some time ago, so he grabbed his headphones and shut his door tight. As he expected, his dad did not come into his room that night to kiss him goodnight. It was mutually advantageous because Dan now had an actual photograph of Eric to keep him busy anyways.   
The next morning Dan was buttering his toast when a tall, dark-haired woman in formal attire sashayed into the living room. “Hey, you must be Dan,”  
“Hey,” Dan bit off his toast. He deterred the eye contact, as he knew from experience that it would only make their interaction more.   
“Oh, so you’ll play the brooding teen role here?” she said, taking a seat across him. “What’s for breakfast?”  
“Um,” Dan muttered. “There is some cereal and toast,”   
“Delicious,” she deadpanned.   
Thankfully, that’s when Jamie decided to appear. “I see you’re having the time of your life, aren’t you, Michelle?” He opened the fridge and took out a can of juice.   
“Yeah, you’ve got a chatty son here,”   
Dan looked down. He was used to his father bringing home girls. The girls were never reckless or disrespectful but Michelle was the first one who had made an inkling of impression on him. 

 

A week later, Dan was cleaning up his room for Eric’s tutoring session. Eric had contacted him on Facebook and they were to meet every Friday for three hours. Alexa had screeched exuberantly when Dan notified her for the development and Dan had become a bit hopeful himself but all it took was a glimpse of Eric canoodling with some other girl by the football stands to dash his hopes.   
Michelle had come home a few more times after the first night. Dan learnt that she was an associate from work and was born in Wales. She enjoyed japing both father and son, only it was a bit more salacious toward Jamie. He was glad that his father had some company, not that he would have trouble meeting or interacting with new people but that it would ease the work pressure about which he was quite worried initially.   
Alexa removed his nail polish during the lunch break of that day. Her advice was preposterous, instructing him to hold Eric’s hand or kiss him. Either way, Dan was flicking his finger against the computer desk when the bell rang and he rushed to receive Eric.   
“It’s a really nice building, dude,” Eric tramped inside, toting a football, a shoulder bag and a backpack.   
“I’ve been told,”   
Eric unloaded his kit behind Dan’s door and looked longingly at the bed. “Can I please have a go?”  
Dan nodded.   
Eric lunged at the bed, making Dan laugh. They spent the next two hours on official duty. Dan did not see the value of wasting time, as much as he’d have liked to do with an admittedly bored Eric. But he took it upon himself to teach Eric how to solve problems of compound interest and shares and dividends. Eric’s work rate improved gradually and by the end of the two hours, he was able to solve many of the problems by himself. There were a few mistakes here or there but none of them were conceptual, Dan was glad. However, when Dan flipped to the geometry chapter, Eric grunted and fell back. “I’m so fucking tired of this shite,”   
“You’re the one who wanted it,” Dan said defensively.   
Eric pulled out his phone. Dan guessed they were taking a break, so he did the same, only he did not have as many things to do on his phone. There were a couple of enthusiastic messages from Alexa and a regular text from his dad, checking up on him.   
Eric rolled his eyes at his phone and let it drop on his chest. “How do you really trust a girl?”  
“Sorry?” Dan asked, bewildered.   
“I mean, do you trust the girl who’s supposed to be your girlfriend or do you trust the girl who’s saying that your girlfriend is cheating on you?”   
“Mate, I don’t think I got any of that,” Dan admitted.   
Eric laughed and sat up. “Do you know Laura Mooney?”   
Dan shook his head.   
“Well, she’s telling me that Alicia, my girlfriend, has been seeing some other bugger behind my back,”   
“Does she have hard proof?”  
“Well, she says that she saw them snogging behind a Nando’s and I dunno if...”  
“So, she doesn’t have hard proof,” Dan ascertained, putting his chin in his hand. “I guess you’ve got to follow your instinct. I don’t know how long you’ve been with your girlfriend but it takes time to trust someone. So it’s totally okay if you can’t trust her yet,”   
Eric lowered his eyes and pouted slightly. “So she could be cheating on me?”   
“Maybe, maybe not,” Dan said. “But you’ve got to have a little faith. For every relationship,”   
Eric sighed.   
“It’s not that hard. I’m sure you use more strategy playing one of them video games,”   
His face glowed. “You mean FIFA?”  
“Yeah, that,”   
“You never played FIFA?” Eric said excitably.   
Dan shook his head. Eric banged his fist on the bed. “For fuck’s sake, I’m bringing it over the next day. Or better yet, you can come over to mine’s and we can play it...”  
“So you can keep flunking in maths? Let’s not ready our pistols just yet,” Dan smirked, placing the notebook on the bed, a pen on top of it. Eric groaned and picked up the pen. There was much more work to be done. 

 

 

 

.


	3. Chapter 3

As it turned out, it was not all that difficult to convince Dan to go over to Eric’s house. But to his defence, it was not all that easy either, especially for someone who harboured a massive crush on Eric. Only after Eric was able to successfully solve speed-based physics problems and construct a few sets of prism diagrams that Dan agreed to come to his house to play video games. Dan had made a commitment to Eric’s academic progress and he was wise enough to stand by it.   
Eric had a big family: three older brothers and an overworked, frantic mother. He was not wealthy, as Dan had presumed. He postulated that wealth was more of a factor in smaller towns, when a bit of shine was all that it took to gain eminence. In a city like London, it was simply not enough. An appealing personality like that of Eric filled many of the holes that wealth could seemingly fill.   
What was not too shocking was that Dan was not the only guy invited to Eric’s house that evening. Eric fetched him from the door and led him upstairs as his mother shouted at her other son in the kitchen for losing money on a gamble. Two of Eric’s closest friends, whom Dan recognized as players from the team, were fixated on the screen in Eric’s room and did not look up when the two entered.   
“Boys, this is Daniel Forster!” Eric announced theatrically, patting Dan on the back. Dan sat down at the corner of the bed, behind the two friends, who were named, as Eric announced in similarly showy fashion, Paul and Oscar.   
Paul was the friendlier one, turning back and fist-bumping Dan. “You wanna have a turn, mate?”  
“I don’t really know how to...”   
“Oh, no worries dude,” Paul consoled. “It takes no time to learn,”  
“And all the time in the world to master,” remarked Oscar, as his large eyes bore into the screen, his fingers clicking rapidly.   
“You’d know,” Eric knocked Oscar’s head.   
Within a few minutes, the controller was thrust onto Dan’s hand and Eric seated himself beside him, having snatched the remote from Oscar. Dan was afraid that he’d be floundering through the game, making a fool out of himself but Eric made sure to explain to him the rules and the format, relaying every detail very carefully. Eric seemed more concerned with Dan being able to understand and ease into the game rather than getting to play; of course, Dan figured that he, like everyone else, liked competition and it would have been too dull to play with a complete amateur.   
“You are a fast learner,” Eric said.  
Dan adapted rather well into the action of the game. He realized there was a constant variable between the maximum speed and the minimum speed and that the player’s turn was dependent on a angle of rotation he deduced from the magnitude of the acceleration.   
By the end of the first hour, Dan inscribed his first win. Eric gaped at him, a bit shell-shocked but a grin cracked across his mouth. His friends bellowed at the background in hysteria.  
“How the fuck did he manage to do that?” Oscar laughed, tussling at Eric from the back.   
“Never bring a nerd to a knife fight!” Paul yelled. He punched Dan lightly on the back and squeezed through between Eric and Dan.   
“Nerd?” Dan exclaimed. “You three are tossers who spend hours in front of a bloody screen,”   
“But that’d make us geeks, right?” Eric suggested.   
“Yeah, in the hierarchy of prestige, a geek presides over a nerd,” Oscar proclaimed in jest.   
“Well, a nerd just beat your geek arse, so...” Dan countered, smirking at Eric.   
His previous misgivings began to subside over the evening. He played a few rounds with Oscar, whose competitiveness, numbing obsession and years of experience resulted in a hard-fought victory. Then the three of them talked about football-related topics, such as their dislike of their new coach, the incompetence of a few players and the like, as Dan looked around the room, absorbing the paraphernalia. Every Arsenal poster, every trophy, every sticker, every photo was being etched into his head.   
Paul and Oscar left soon after they fended off alarming phone calls from their mothers. Eric said that they were from the same neighbourhood and practically came around to his house every day. Dan sunk into the chair, hesitant over whether he should leave as well. He did not have a nagging mother to call him back home; he would just be going to an empty house.   
Eric shoved a handful of crisps in his mouth. “Up for another round?”   
Dan lowered his head. “I’m tired of beating you,”   
“Wanker,” Eric scoffed. “So what do you wanna do?”  
Dan shrugged. “Should I leave?”   
“Mum’s gonna have me if you do. You’re the new friend and its thirty minutes till dinner,” Eric said, pointing at the lock on his bedside table.   
Dan let his eyes droop; the fatigue was heaving down his body. Eric must have noticed that, because he said, “If you want a nap, take the bed,”   
Dan smiled and leaped onto the bed. Lying on his back, facing the ceiling, he fell into a reverie, as he often did, composed of fantasies, fears, memories and intangible thoughts. So profound and unshakeable were those reveries that he forgot that the object of his infatuation sat by his foot and was asking him a question.   
“Your mom isn’t gonna freak, is she?”  
Eric had to nudge his shoe. “Oye, Dan,”   
“Oh sorry,” Dan said. “Uhm...no, I don’t have a mom,” he said, rubbing his eye.   
Eric was visibly regretful of having asked that question. He bit his lip. “Sorry. I didn’t think...”  
“It’s alright. It doesn’t bother me,” he said honestly.   
“When did she pass?”   
“She’s alive,” Dan clarified. “She skipped town soon after I was born. She was a young girl, had a field of dreams before I wrecked it for her,”   
“C’mon, mate. It’s not like you had a choice,” Eric pressed Dan’s foot for a second. His grip was gentle but quick. His foot tingled, pining for another touch. Dan gazed up at Eric and realized this was the closest they’ve ever been, both physically and emotionally, without an external presence hovering by them, not his friends, not their books.   
They were summoned for dinner a few minutes later. Eric’s mother was a short, plump woman in her fifties. Though she was comparatively older than most parents, she was vigorous and stern toward her children. She smiled at Dan when serving him chicken roast and mashed potatoes. But she would not serve her own children; she ordered them to serve themselves, but only moderately, as there was a guest in presence.   
Eric’s brothers were older and it appeared they all lived under the same roof. Frankly, Dan was a bit frightened of their dispositions. The oldest, Eddie, sported a thick beard and tore apart the meat with his teeth. Then came Elliot; he was the most well-groomed of the brood, with his styled, slicked-up hair and a burly frame adorned in tattoos. The third-oldest, Ethan, was not too older than Eric; he was sinewy and held a mean resting face. Eric, however, was perfect.   
Elliot was sharing an account of what had happened last night at a club. “Vicky was rattling off about her head feels like its getting drilled into and the copper tosses me a look. I’m like ‘shite, I found this girl at the club’. There is no fucking way I’m going down for her messes. That’s when her dunce of a friend reels behind and looks at me and says, ‘can I have more of that snow?’”   
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Mrs. Bunton slammed her fork against the plate.   
Eddie began guffawing; the water he had been spilling out of his mouth. “You get them best ones, don’t you?”  
“Fuck off, Eddie,” Mrs. Bunton grimaced and turned to Elliot. “You better put a lid on it, you hear me? I don’t care how you want grind your life into shit; no way you’re wasting that girls’ life,”   
“Mum,” Ethan said. “We know that girls who walk into Masters’ just lost their address of their abortion clinic,”   
“Oh!” Elliot gasped and broke out into a fit of laughter.   
“Or they think the coke is actually the abortion,” Eric added, fuelling his brothers’ collective ruckus.   
Mrs Bunton smiled. “It definitely would kill the foetus, wouldn’t it,” she said, giving into the sons’ antics.   
“How’d you get away?” asked Dan, eying Elliot inquisitively.   
“Oh,” he said. “Well, the copper asked me what I was selling and confiscated it,”  
“God rest his soul,” said Ethan.   
“Do you think he even tried to share it with his partners?” asked Eric.   
“He was a greedy little fuck. No way he made it through the night,”   
Dan watched them in amusement, chewing slowly, a bit overwhelmed by their raucous, frisky but ultimately well-meaning dynamic. Having been raised by a young, struggling dad and occasionally by working grandparents, he had never experienced something like that. By the time his dad called him, Dan realized that he had barely finished his dinner. Mrs. Bunton looked a bit disappointed but she and Eric saw him off at the front door.   
“You’re welcome for dinner anytime, munchkin,” she said, fluffing Dan’s hair. “Don’t let the big boys scare you,”   
“Nah, nothing scares Danny here,” Eric inserted, placing his palm on Dan’s shoulder. “You know, he beat me at FIFA,”   
Dan chuckled and waved them goodbye. A strong, exuberant warmth deluged him and he couldn’t be more glad of having spent the evening with the Buntons. 

 

He had adjusted his mentality to the fact that Eric was undoubtedly, contently straight. What kept him afloat was the possibility of having Eric in his life as a friend. Despite Eric snogging and holding hands with Alicia Davis, he would still lock eyes and smile at Dan whenever they saw each other in passing. At Eric’s behest, Dan sat at the front with him during English, along with Paul and their other friend, Clark. Yes, he had to endure Laura Mooney flirt with Eric by pulling down her blouse and blinking lasciviously but it may be worth it for the cheerful glances and the funny comments Eric occasionally threw at Dan between the lectures.   
It was yet another Friday evening and Dan was doing his homework at the dining table. Michelle had taken a look through his textbook and almost fainted. She and Jamie were supposed to be making dinner together but really, Michelle just leaned against the counter and sipped on wine.   
“Dan, that book is going to walk out of your hands and climb off to its death,” Michelle was already a bit intoxicated, slanting against Jamie. She tried to grab a knife from slice some onions but he wriggled her off and sent her to the table.   
“C’mon! You treat me like I’m some, sloshed piece of trash. It’s just some wine,” she complained, gritting her teeth at Jamie.   
“Oh no, I’m not letting you hold a knife even under normal blood alcohol levels,” Jamie said.   
Dan chuckled, looking down at his work. Rachel wrinkled her forehead at Dan. “Very funny. Don’t talk but laugh all you want,”  
“No, it’s just that Dad said you have quite a temper,”   
Michelle raised her eyebrows at his dad. “Trying to paint me as the evil step-mother, huh? You gotta die for the Cinderella story, don’t forget,”   
The more wine she imbibed, the more comedy she provided. Not only through her wildly funny words but through her gestures, her facial expressions, her timing. Dan was beaming for his father; he had found somebody, whether temporarily or not, who was not only the life of their small party but an endless source of entertainment. In his fifteen years, he had never seen his dad making dinner for another woman, so it was an improvement of sorts and perhaps a hopeful indication of his happiness.   
The lemon-pepper fragrance of the sauce was starting to saturate the kitchen when the bell rang. Dan broke for the door to welcome his friend. Eric’s hair was wet. “Showerhead,” he explained as he trundled in. As usual, he had hauled in a pack of materials, earning curious glances from both Jamie and Michelle.   
Like how a week before when Dan was introduced to the Buntons’, it was now Eric’s turn to be acquainted with his family. This went much more smoothly than Dan had expected, mainly due to Eric’s confident manner of speaking and Jamie’s interest in football. The two got off fairly well as Jamie learnt that Eric was a centre-forward and Eric found out that Jamie was a stealthy Arsenal supporter. They discussed the current season and their predictions. It was getting a bit tedious for Dan so when Michelle called for dinner to serve, he was able to snatch Eric towards his room.   
Today’s session was covering the subject of Biology, the chapter of genetics and even though Eric was able to comprehend some of the more complex concepts in maths, he could not seem to be able to absorb the information on Biology. Dan, in desperation, was forced to bring out his old DNA model he had constructed in year seven.   
It was a dusty, old display, made of gaudy, plastic ping-pong balls and steamers but it had done the trick for him a couple of years ago. Eric gaped at it in silence, his mouth dropping. “You made this?”   
“Yeah,”  
“Goodness,”   
He kneeled down and studied the model closely. Dan took the opportunity and explained how certain elements of the model were related and as he had predicted, it was working. By the end, Eric himself was able to describe the structure and function of the model with ease. Dan smiled in accomplishment.   
“You’re really good at this,” Eric said, eyeing Dan in amazement. “Like, you’re really talented,”   
Dan smiled sheepishly.   
As was becoming tradition, Eric did not simply take off after the studying was completed. This time, he suggested they watch one of his favourite movies, Jason Bourne. Dan did not watch too many movies on his computer so he let Eric go on it and stream it on some site. With the laptop perched in the middle of the bed, the two settled against the headboard.   
Eric was close enough for Dan to catch his scent. He smelled of deodorant but he also sensed a musky sweetness exuding out of Eric. He reprimanded himself for abusing his friendship with Eric for his personal, inappropriate urges and decided to direct his attention to the movie. Thankfully, the movie was packed with enough action and plot to sustain him for two hours. When the credits rolled on, Eric turned to Dan expectantly. “What’d you think?”   
“Um...” Dan tightened his jaw. “It was a bit too...mindless for me,”   
“You’re fucking kidding?”   
“I’m glad you liked it, though,” Dan said. “Mindless suits you,”  
Dan laughed as Eric wrestled him down against the bed. He was too giddy to be turned on by Eric’s pounding body, much to his relief. Besides, it was not about hormones at all, it was about the joy he drew from Eric. The joy that flung him into space every night before he went to bed. 

 

The days were passing quicker. Instead of lying in wait for Eric to spare him a scrap of attention, Eric would talk to him on his own. Dinners at his house were become a weekly event, his brothers’ stories becoming less wackier but Dan’s participation on the table blossoming. Eric’s friend, Paul, invited Dan to the cinemas with them. It was yet another mindless action film but this time, the protagonist was attractive enough to keep him hooked. During their tutoring sessions, Eric would blather on and one about the troubles of his love life.   
“If Alicia only gave me two fucks about...”  
“Eric,” Dan said. “All the girls should be psyched to be with you,”  
Eric did not look convinced, so Dan shut the book and looked Eric in the eye. “I’ve never dated so I wouldn’t know how it works but when you’re in a relationship and you care about someone, you don’t make excuses. You realize how special that person is and you give them all your time,”   
Eric paused for a second and then burst into laughter. Dan whacked him with a pillow and rolled his eyes, relieved, knowing how close to a declaration that was.   
Meanwhile, Alexa had a falling out with Divya and Lisa. She accused them of spreading rumours about her, and Divya accused her of calling all the shots and bossing the other two around. Alexa defended herself by claiming that was simply a function of her overbearing personality. Divya defended by saying nothing and breaking off her friendship with Alexa. Dan did not have any opinions about the conflict but he knew that Alexa’s commanding, sometimes overbearing personality was exactly why he chose to text her forty times a day and sit with her during lunch.   
On one strange Wednesday, during English, Eric asked whether Dan would like to go to Laura Mooney’s party this coming Saturday.   
“I don’t know...” was his immediate, cumbersome response.   
“Why not? It’ll be fun,”   
Dan shrugged. “I get awkward in big crowds,”   
Eric put his hand on Dan’s shoulder. “Well, I’m a crowd-pleaser so if you stick close enough...you’ll be fine,” he flashed a smooth grin.   
Dan thought that perhaps Eric knew the kind of effect he had on Dan because Dan’s reservations immediately melted away. “Fine, I’ll go to Laura Looney’s party,”   
For Dan, it was just an obvious pun but Eric couldn’t stop laughing for the entirety of the class.


	4. Chapter 4

Alexa came over to Dan’s house the evening of the party. Her intention was to warn him of the ‘evil, two-faced wenches’ that roamed Laura’s parties but she ended up picking his outfit. He pointed out that a black, zip-up jacket would be quite heavy for a mid-March night.   
“You look really hot,” Alexa insisted. “I’m allowed to say that, right?”  
Dan struck a pose with the jacket. “It’s too big, isn’t it?”   
“It makes you look like you’re ripped, so...that’s a good thing,”   
Dan asked Alexa whether she’d like to tag along to the party, but she declined. “I wouldn’t want to ruin your big night, Dannyboy,”   
Dan blushed but he knew what these kind of parties entailed. He had never been to one but the stories painted a very vivid portrait indeed.   
Eric had texted him the address the day before; it was a few stops on the tube from Dan’s flat. Jamie offered to drive him but the last thing Dan would have wanted is for his dad to drop him off to a boisterous school party. Laura lived in an elegant townhouse yet the music blaring through its windows and door suggested otherwise. A horde of people were blocking the entrance, each holding a glass of beer and a cigarette. He squeezed through them, apologizing profusely. The inside of her house was white and spacious, modern furniture gracing its floor, artefacts embellishing its walls and drunken teenagers milling about in its corners and between.   
Dan recognized a few faces from school, the athletes, the dance team, the stoners, a few faces that lurked outside school and a few faces that he had never seen before. Nobody bothered to eye the newcomer; they were all huddled among their friends, shaking to the music, puffing smoke into each others’ faces.   
Dan faltered down the length of the first floor without any sign of Eric at all. Just when he was about to dial Eric’s number, a voice shouted at him from the corner. Dan strode down to Eric and his friends, who were sitting around the kitchen table, drinks in hand, smiles on faces.   
“You settling in okay, mate?” asked Paul, his face red as a ripe fruit. “Eric was sure you wouldn’t turn up,”   
“Here I am,” Dan took a seat in the table.   
Eric chuckled and extended his drink towards Dan. He raised his eyebrows indicatively. Dan looked down; he had never had a drink before. It wasn’t so odd since he had never been to a party either.   
“A bit of vodka never hurt anyone,” Eric beamed, patting his back.   
Dan figured he was over-thinking the significance of his first drink. It’s not like he had to displace himself, or reposition his body, or even learn a new technique to accomplish it. It was just a drink, like water or juice or pop, so Dan took the glass and took a sip. It tasted like nothing as it filled his mouth but as he swallowed, his throat was pierced by a toxic bitterness. He must have winced because Paul and Oscar shrieked animatedly.   
“Boys becoming men here!”   
Oscar shook him and took a shot himself. The music was coalescing into the nerves inside Dan’s head and he felt his vision weakening. Eric grinned at him. He was saying something but his words were stuck in air. Dan heard giggling and he turned around. Perhaps he was too daft because the source of the giggling shifted and now Laura Mooney had drawn close to Eric. She was nuzzling against his cheek and he was now gazing up at her.   
She whispered something in his ear and Dan felt the potency of the vodka blowing into his skull. He chuckled and said to her loudly, “This is my friend, Dan!” He aimed his hand in Dan’s direction and Laura turned to smirk down at him.   
“You’re the tutor right?” she said, but her thin voice was being drowned out by the heavy metal.   
Dan thought he nodded but he was not sure. His ears rang in irritation and his throat was getting dry. Eric asked Laura something and she gripped into his hair and both of them looked behind Dan. He turned around and saw a heavy-busted, tall white girl shuffling forward in a skimpy outfit. She wedged herself between Eric and Dan and sat herself on the table.   
“Hey, Eric,” she smiled.   
“Ava! Aren’t you looking fresh,” Eric said and said to Dan, “I told Ava about how smart and cool you are,”   
Ava simpered down at Dan seductively. “And I want to get to know you more,”   
Dan gulped and his mind began rocking. Ava and Laura talked about something as Dan stared at Eric and how he rested his head against Laura’s shoulder. He smiled at him knowingly. “Do you want another drink?”   
Nothing about the impact of the vodka shot was pleasurable. His senses were dwindling away, his consciousness had been jolted and the jealousy of seeing Eric and Laura snuggling on the chair stung through his eyes. But seeing Eric smile managed to touch a nerve, regardless of whatever was surrounding them at the moment.   
“Sure,”   
Eric looked at Ava. “Take him and get him some shots?”   
“Of course,” she said excitedly. Ava grabbed Dan by the hand, lifted him off the chair and led him towards the hall room.   
By then, Dan was already regretting his decision to agree to more shots of alcohol. Before he was hauled through the sea of foreign faces, he caught a glimpse of Eric and Laura kissing. Ava took him to the kitchen, where the drinks were being distributed. He broke through the fog of smoke and eyed the drinks at the counter. He did not hold any knowledge of the effectiveness of each type of alcohol but at the moment, he would take anything to evince the sight of Eric with the girl.   
Ava handed him a glass and they took shots together. He stopped counting after he downed his fourth shot. The frame of Ava’s face started to obscure as she floated closer to him.   
“I haven’t seen you around before...”   
She was saying something but the words were cutting off. Dan kept wheeling his head, noticing something random at each turn, like the empty beer bottle by the bathroom door, the wad of napkins fluttering by the window, someone’s black heels tipping against the floor. He could not steady his nerves or his gaze.   
“But if you’d like, we could get really comfortable,”   
He’d lost Eric. He could not identify the area of the floor on which Eric and his friends were lounging. Dan reprimanded himself; why did he care about Eric? It’s not like any bit of their friendship matters. Not like their friendship wasn’t planted upon unrequited feelings and insurmountable differences. Not like Eric could conceivably ever see Dan as more than a friend. Not like the culture of homophobia would suddenly evaporate from the school systems.   
When Dan looked straight, he felt something coming. It was the girl, whose name had been lost in the air. She was bringing herself closer to him. She touched his lip, raised her head and aimed for his lips.   
Dan flinched back. He didn’t clearly know what the danger was but his instinct spurred him on. “I’m really sorry,” he said as he staggered out of the kitchen.   
He could feel the sweat pouring down his forehead. The music pounded against his head. He felt the alcohol creeping up his body, rushing to his brain. With everybody consumed by the same feeling, he did not have to worry about embarrassing himself as he stumbled outside. He would rather surrender his body parts to unknown forces in the wind than to go back inside but each step forward was starting to become a gruelling mental exercise.   
Suddenly, an arm linked up with his and he pivoted his head to see the person. Of course, the root of his distress. “Are you okay?” Eric asked.   
“What do you think?” The response hurled out of his mouth quickly. Dan was in no mood of pleasantries or artificial politeness. His anger at Eric was valid and he was not going to shy away from expressing it.   
“I think you’ve had a bit too much to drink,”   
“Whose fault is that?”  
Holding onto Eric’s hand, Dan keeled forward. Dan had shed his visor of self-consciousness through the sweat; he no longer cared being seen by the haughty, temperamental upperclassmen.   
“Why’d you leave?” asked Eric.   
“Go figure,”   
Dan attempted to wrangle off his hand from Eric but Eric chuckled. “You wanna get home like this? Your dad is going to sue me for sure,”   
Dan rolled his eyes. “Maybe you deserve it. Bringing me to a shite party,” he sputtered.   
“I’m getting you out of here, aren’t I?”   
Dan was relieved but he hoped his face did not show it. He stopped straining his mind for direction or mobility; he held onto Eric and let him haul him through the streets. They scarpered down the stairs of the tube and into the train as it zipped in. By that point, Dan was simply absorbing the variety of lights and colours he was passing through; he had lost his ability to recognize and separate the sensations.   
“So you’re with Laura now?” asked Dan abrasively.   
Eric shrugged.  
“C’mon,” Dan scoffed. “I don’t particularly know how she is but...you’re fucking around if you don’t know what she is to you,”   
“What the fuck does that mean?”  
“I mean, if ye like someone, you tell them. If ye don’t, you tell them. What’s the bloody point in tagging them around?”   
Eric shoved him on the shoulder. “When did you become the voice of reason?”   
“Since you told me to get drinks with the girl,” answered Dan. He was not going to let Eric off the hook for that one.   
“I wanted you to have a good time,”   
“And you assumed she was the key?” Dan countered bitterly.   
Eric did not respond; he chewed his lip and looked away. The two reached Dan’s street and Eric held onto Dan. Dan was stumbling and veering off to the street, his consciousness being passed through the test of time. At the entrance of his flat, Eric let go of Dan and looked him in the eye. “You’ll be fine, right?”  
Dan snorted. “Of course. You’re going back to the party, I assume?” he asked disdainfully.   
Eric stuck his hands out. “I thought you were having fun!”   
Dan began foundering towards the door. “She’s not my type,” he asserted. “And you should’ve asked me, you know. You made a giant, fucking mistake but by all means, enjoy your party,” And with that, Dan left his friend hanging in the street. 

 

Michelle thrummed on the computer. “You really think Kinley is going to stick out for us?”   
Jamie lied beside her, skimming over the document. “I don’t see why not. He’ll be putting 50 million pounds on the garden if not,”   
“He’s smarter than that, you know that,” replied Michelle in irritation. She slid against the headboard and lowered her brows. “I just can’t figure this whackjob out,”   
Jamie set the document aside and shifted closer. “Maybe you shouldn’t worry about it, right?” he requested, kissing her elbow.   
“It’s a lot of money. I’m not that stupid...”  
Jamie shut her laptop and placed it on the bedside table. “I don’t think we should bring work to the bed,” He pulled her down to her back and put his arm around her shoulder.   
“Should’ve thought about that before you stuck it in me,” she said, sinking into his arms.   
“Let’s not pretend it was my idea,” replied Jamie.   
Michelle smirked. “Are you saying it was not consensual?”   
Jamie chuckled, tightening his grasp around her body. “I think he likes you,”   
“Are you talking about your weenie?” She wrinkled her forehead at his crotch.   
“No. Dan.” He clarified.   
“It’s a great if he does but...that’s none of my concern,” she stated. “I’m not here to play step-ma to your lad. You’re an adult. I’m an adult. We’re having fun and this is between us,”   
Jamie was impressed by her response but before he could express it, their doorbell rang. Jamie figured it was too early for Dan to return from the party but upon opening the door, he also realized his son had perhaps jumped into the party waters a bit too early. Dan was not only brutally wasted but visibly upset. Jamie was not appalled or worried; he grabbed onto his son’s hip and carried him to his room. Incomprehensible words mumbled out of Dan’s mouth. Jamie straightened him up and helped him to his bed. ‘What a waste’, Dan kept saying. Jamie laid him flat on the bed and yanked off his shoes and jacket. He patted his son’s head till he felt he was slipping into sleep. Once he was off, Jamie slogged back into the living room. Michelle was at the kitchen, making a cup of coffee.   
“You still don’t regret sleeping with a father of a fifteen-year-old?” Jamie asked tiredly.   
She smiled. “Where would I go for shitshows like this?”   
Thankfully, it was a Sunday the next day, which meant Dan was afforded an unusually long time to toil through his hangover. Michelle herself woke up at noon, despite not having swallowed a drop of alcohol the night before. Jamie woke a good two hours before them and a sunny, vigorous energy struck him. He decided to cook a sumptuous brunch for his girlfriend and his son. By the time, Michelle ambled into the kitchen, the smell of bacon had consumed the air and pots and pans were sizzling with food.   
Dan could not hurdle through the embarrassment of having to face his father after what he felt was a disastrous night. He averted their gaze as he stepped into the kitchen and took a seat at the table. He had always wanted to display to his father his willingness to socialize and ability to enjoy his youth but with yet another downer of a night, his social deficiency was being brought under the light yet again.   
“Fun night, Dan?” Michelle sipped her juice neatly.   
Feeling an ache gashing through his head, Dan lowered his head onto the table, both in pain and in shame. Jamie slapped a ladleful of eggs onto a plate and sprinkled pepper over it. Placing the plate before Dan, he ruffled his son’s hair and said, “You okay, lad?”  
“I’m fine,” Dan murmured as he began eating.   
“Don’t feel bad, son. We’ve all had some rough ones in the past,” Jamie went back to the kitchen to grab the pancakes. “I just want you to avoid going to those rough drinking parties for a bit. Not that there is anything wrong with’em, but maybe they’re not for you,”   
The three ate at the table leisurely. Michelle devoured her pancakes with gusto, having finished four in the time it took Dan to nibble away at his scrambled eggs. After a fulfilling brunch, Jamie suggested the three of them spend the day sight-seeing London. Though Michelle rolled her eyes and called them ‘dumb tourists’, she agreed to be their guide. Dan agreed, only to not risk tainting his father’s chipper mood.   
They set off for the London Eye after brunch. Michelle had cautioned them against overcrowding and the throngs of international tourists in line for a ride validated her concern. So they chose to behold the cycling competition occurring close to the Eye and cheered on the cyclists. Afterwards, they took the tube to the London Bridge, where the intensity of the crowd was moderate and the ambiance was relaxed. They were gorging on some hotdogs by the river when Dan browsed through his phone to find two missed calls from Eric. He switched his phone off again.   
As the sun was snaking behind the horizon, Michelle guided them into a bowling alley. She knew the owner so they were able to play for a discount. Dan was not particularly into it, especially since Michelle and Jamie were embroiled in the madness of competition. Curse words soared through the air every time Michelle missed. Then Michelle urged Dan for a round against her. He managed to beat her score but instead of stomping her foot and swearing, she curtseyed and smirked. “Have at it, kiddo,”   
Once they were exhausted of tossing bowling balls through the lanes, they got milkshakes at the joint. Dan was slurping on his blueberry shake as Michelle winced at Jamie’s choice at a banana milkshake. “There is something seriously wrong with you,”   
“It’s healthy,”   
“You’re gross,”  
When Jamie fished his wallet out, Michelle swathed it away. “I’ll take care of it,” As she stood up, Jamie alerted, “Just don’t use your sexuality,”  
Michelle flashed the finger at him and flounced towards the counter. She began chatting up with the owner and by all appearances, was not using her sexuality. Dan checked his phone again and this time, his seven new messages were marked with the same sender. He lowered his eyebrows in thought. He might have been maintaining an immense crush on his straight friend but he knew that if he allowed himself to be close to him on a platonic level, he would only be setting himself up for a calamitous fall.   
Jamie discerned the traces of anguish in his son’s eyes. “What’s been bothering you?”  
Dan shook his head. “That’s just how I am,”   
“I can tell it’s something else,”   
Dan pouted and looked down. His father continued speaking, “Look, son, you don’t have to tell me what it is. But nothing’s worth that frown on your face. If it’s a girl problem...well, don’t bother yourself with it. Girls in school can be...tricky,”  
Dan looked at Michelle, who was leaning against the counter and slapping around the manager like he was her little brother. “Unlike her?”   
Jamie followed his gaze and chortled. “She...is not fifteen, for once. She is erratic, loud and harsh. But at least she lays all her cards on the table,”   
“Dad, you’re not making me feel any better about my love life by being all sappy!” he whined.   
“A-ha!” His dad raised his voice. “So it is about your love life,”   
Dan scowled.   
“Okay, okay, not going to say anything. But promise yourself that you’re not going to get caught up over whatever it is,” he advised.   
Dan witnessed yet another message flood his inbox from Eric and sighed. “I promise,”


	5. Chapter 5

Eric was being a bad Christian because he did not once look up at the pastor orating to a hall full of devoted individuals. His attention was steered to the events that transpired the night before. He did not intake enough alcohol for his memory to be wiped out but now he wished he had. His mother sat to his left, gazing soulfully at the altar. His oldest brother, Eddie, was gazing soulfully at a photo of female genitals on his phone. Try as he did trying to focus on anything but what Dan had said to him before he reeled off to his flat, Eric was not able to shake it off.   
He had just wanted to make Dan happy. Granted, he did not know Dan too well to determine how that would come to be but he had to work with what he had and what he could safely presume. But then again, Dan wasn’t like any other roaming the streets for a hit or a lay.   
He texted Dan as soon as the service had ended. Hey, you okay? he sent. It was considerate and he hoped it would be enough to reassure Dan of their friendship. The brothers were lingering outside, waiting for their mother, who, as per usual, was taking her sweet time socializing with other church-goers. She had probably already invited a few hungry families for dinner that night. Elliot offered Eric a drag on his cigarette but Eric raised his eyebrows critically.   
“Right,” he said. “You’re the Boy Who Could,”   
They were referring to his aspirations to be a professional football player and how it took precedence over anything else in his life. Apart from Ethan, who supported him without any reservations, the rest of his family were apprehensive at best. And with good reason, too; they knew that almost every lad who spent so much as an hour every weekend watching matches on the TV wished to be professional. The culture was widespread and zealous but for most boys, it was also a fantasy they knew would never come to fruition.   
Dan had last checked his phone the evening before, as written on his Whatsapp’s ‘last seen’. His profile photo was nothing glamorous or even noteworthy; it was simply a poor-quality snapshot of Dan staring sideways behind a wooden door. It was awkward and gawky but Eric could not stop staring at it.   
Suddenly, Eddie elbowed him. “Ye think that missy got mad pussy?”   
Eric shut his phone and looked; it was a short, blonde girl wearing a tidy white dress and a tight plait. He would be chiding his older brother for preying on innocent girls before he remembered that Eddie somehow always seemed to distinguish between the genuine, uptight girls and the girls pretending to be genuine and uptight.   
“You’d know better, won’t you?”  
“Would you nail her is what I’m saying,” said Eddie.   
Eric nudged him off his shoulders. “Go for it, Ed. No one can resist your mountain of a dick, can they?”  
Eddie straightened his tie and rushed to talk to the girl. He might mock his older brother for roping at women but he wish he was as decisive.   
After church, he had a game at the school ground against a neighbouring team. They provided some pressure in the beginning but Gramercy dismantled them with three goals in the second half. At the changing room, Eric was rubbing the towel against his back when Paul alerted him of Laura waiting for him outside. Eric loured and headed out, towel wrapped around his waist.   
“What’s up?”  
Laura stepped closer. “Why didn’t you come back to the party tomorrow?”  
“I was dropping my friend off,”   
“That skinny one?”  
“His name is Dan,” pronounced Eric, as he shifted away from her.   
She was a real stunner, what with the classic features bound to entice every boy who dares to eye her body: the popping chest, the thick lips doused in lipstick, big doe eyes, the sizzling red hair. She drifted closer to him and slid her fingers into his hair. “Oh well. Maybe you can take me out tonight?”  
Dan tightened his mouth, softly unplugged her fingers from his hair and set her hand down. “Laura,” he said. “I don’t think we are right for each other,”   
“Really?” she asked. “Or have you found some other girl to mess with?”  
“It’s not like that, at all,” he emphasized.   
She snorted. “Maybe you’re forgetting that you left Alicia’s tits and a sack for me,”   
Not only was her reaction vile but it lowered Eric’s self-regard for having chosen her at all. He drew back and smiled at her. “Laura, there are a million blokes you could take with what you’ve got. Let this one go,”   
He could have easily driven her out with a firing of curses and insults but that’s not how he functioned. If it was feasible to keep everyone in his good graces, then he would surely try to do so.   
Laura grinned. “You’re lucky you’re cute,”  
“In this case, a bit unlucky,”   
She laughed in agreement as she sashayed away, her heels clicking across the floor. “Stay loyal to the next one, E,”   
Having dusted off one burden off his shoulder, he spent the rest of the evening obsessing over another. Dan had checked his messages but had not replied to any of Eric’s. Eric frowned at his phone and lied down on his bed, his fingers darting across his phone. I’m really sorry about yesterday, he wrote. He browsed Dan’s Facebook profile and thought it might have seemed dull in terms of engagement or presence; he could not stop studying each element from it. From the range of scientific journals and fact machines to the pristine, adorable baby photos, there was so much to digest from his profile.   
He thought about how Dan patiently listened to all his babble about girls and gave him sound advice. How he nibbled on his lips when he was focusing on a maths problem. How his searching eyes examined the screen when they played video games. How he wrote his 4s’ in a circular manner. How he grinned when he was pleased with something he did.   
Eric called Dan several times in the evening but nobody picked up. When Ethan came into his room, Eric was situated in the same position he had been in since the afternoon. “Christ, you’re gonna get fat,” he said, going to the corner and picking up his body spray.   
Eric faced the ceiling but his mind danced with thoughts beyond it.   
“You know...when footballers think, their feet actually get slower,” Ethan was fixing up his hair in the mirror.   
“Fuck off,” Eric muttered, but then he considered asking his brother to counsel him through this morass. “You got a minute?”  
Ethan shrugged.   
“How’d you figure out...” he stammered. “How’d you realize you liked Karen?”  
Ethan laughed. Karen was his on-again-off-again girlfriend whom he had met when he was Eric’s age—fifteen. Eric’s brothers were not exactly role models for monogamy, like most men of their age and disposition in the neighbourhood but Ethan was the best point of reference he had. He was only three years older than Eric and back when they shared a room, he used to prattle on and on about Karen. Their eventual impediment turned out to be commitment, especially with their changing goals and lifestyles, but never romance.   
“She had a tight arse,”   
“You know what I mean,” said Eric gently.   
“Her friends were friends with my friends so we became friends,”   
“But why was she more special than your other lady friends?”  
Ethan contemplated the question. “I guess I liked how she looked. I liked how she talked. You saw me at my worst, kiddo. I thought about her a lot. I kinda wanted her all to myself, y’know? Normally, with friends, you don’t really care who’s with you as long as you all are having a good time. But with Karen, I wanted it to be just her and me. Doing anything, really,”   
Eric listened and felt his chest rise.   
“What’s the matter? The blondie wife material or what?”   
Eric shook his head and he was bombarded with ideas and feelings that had never occurred to him before.   
The next day, he scoured the hallways for a glimpse of Dan. Eric wished he had not been this popular because everyone stopped over to greet him, pat his back, talk to him and just steal the time he’d rather spend with Dan. Finally, he spotted Dan at the locker with his friend, Alexa. Dan made eye contact, grinned and turned back to Alexa. Eric frowned and continued staring at Dan, hoping he would look at him again. It was of no use because Dan proceeded to climb the stairs to the second floor, engrossed in his conversation with Alexa.   
Eric felt incomplete the whole day. Not that he was bright chap at school but he did not even bother putting any effort into fooling around with his mates. He wished he could take back the night of the party, where he had been such a moron in trying to set up Dan with some random girl. He went beyond their limitations of friendship and now he was only paying the price. He wondered if Dan would still be up for tutoring him on Friday but he feared that the session would probably be laced with tension or be conducted as formally as possible, without the added time of video games, chill-out or anything of that sort. Eric’s heart sank when Dan nodded at him in English but chose to sit in his original spot at the back. He couldn’t even turn around to see Dan because that would have been too obvious and frankly, a bit sad if Dan decided not to respond. Even Paul inquired about Dan and why he was being a bit adrift today but Eric excused him by stating that Dan was probably restive over an upcoming set of tests.   
Alexa was in Eric’s biology class and he decided to hound her after class. It was the safest route to Dan and Eric reckoned it was easier to learn what was irking Dan from his friend rather than from Dan himself as he could often be very inarticulate. Alexa glared at him when Eric called her name after class. They waited till the students has cleared the room and then Eric got to the pressing questions.   
“How is Dan?”  
“He’s alright. Didn’t you see him?” she said nonchalantly.   
“I mean, mentally?”   
“What do you think he is some kind of a retard?” she retorted, annoyed. “He just got drunk is all,”   
Eric hesitated. She seemed like she was not only already privy to what had happened the night of the party but she knew what Dan was all about. “I shouldn’t have...tried to set him up with a girl. It was totally my...”  
She leaned against the desk and scoffed. “You fucking messed up, dude. Did you even want to be his friend or were you just looking for laughs at the...”  
“Of course he is my friend!” Eric shouted.   
Alexa flinched back. “Jesus,”  
Eric lowered his head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. I just...don’t want Dan to think I don’t care. About him, I mean. I want him to be happy,”   
Alexa sighed and looked conflicted. It took a few minutes but she spoke. “He’s never going to be happy with girls, if you know what I mean,”   
Eric understood her words but the context escaped him. Alexa left the room and Eric stood, stumped, confused and wondered if he had bit more than he could chew. While the team was practicing in the afternoon, the word ‘gay’ flittered in his head. No one had flung homophobic insults, no one was exhibiting homosexual behaviour but yet that’s all that remained in Eric’s head for the duration of the day.   
At night, as he was doing his homework, he texted Dan. Do you know the quadratic formula? His intention was, of course, layered but Dan was too dedicated a tutor to refuse to answer an academic question.   
Sure. Pic or do you want to call me? He replied.   
Eric did not even have to think about it. Dan picked up in four rings, as Eric’s heart beat four times its normal speed. “Can you tell me the formula?” asked Eric immediately, wanting to make it clear that this was an official phone call.   
“Yeah, of course,”   
Eric expected Dan to rustle through papers to find the formula but he dictated it immediately. Eric’s pen zipped across the paper as he caught up to write it. When he finished, Eric chewed his lip, mustering the courage to talk to Dan as if nothing has changed between them. “So, do you want to catch a cinema this Friday?”   
The next five seconds were the most arduous in Eric’s life. He felt like the phone could slip out of hands with the way he was starting to sweat. “Okay, yeah. Are Paul and Oscar going to be there?”  
“Um, we could invite them,”   
Eric regretted it as soon as he suggested it, knowing that, of course, Dan would want to invite them. He was starting to assimilate himself into their group of friends and this was going to be yet another way to bond with them.   
“Yeah, sure,”   
They made their plans, said goodnight and Eric hung up the phone. He collapsed straight on his bed and rested his hand over his chest. It did not steady his heart. For the first time in a long time, he was very, very afraid.   
He could have thought what it meant for his social standing. He could have thought about how his career aspirations would be affected. He could have thought about how his family could react. He thought about what this meant for him personally, how he saw himself, how he functioned on a daily basis.   
But instead, he chose to focus on the colour of Dan’s eyes and the shape of his lips as he descended into sleep. 

 

Eric floundered restlessly through the week. His heart bounced every time he spotted Dan, whether he was ambling through the crowd, eating food or simply taking notes in class. Eric knew he could not be feeling this way about a boy but he always knew that if he decided to delve into the meaning behind his feelings, he would only be inviting guilt and fear into his mindset.   
Dan gave him a review sheet before his quiz on Thursday. He even skipped a class to go over some difficult questions with Eric. Eric gave it his all on the quiz, not in the least because he wanted to achieve good marks and continue to play football but because he wanted to show Dan that he was capable of improving and working hard. He tracked down Dan after his quiz and informed him of how the quiz went.   
“I think I might actually pass,”   
“You better,” Dan said. “You’re the only sample test I’ve got,”   
On Friday, Eric decided to skip training. It was probably the first time in three years he announced he would not be able to make it after school. Paul almost spit out his food and Oscar immediately began riling him up with playful questions. “Who’s the lucky lady, E? You sure it isn’t a football with tits?”   
He would not have been effective on the pitch anyways, as his inside of his chest had been trembling since the morning. At home, he had a heavy meal, which he realized was a poor idea as it only augmented his queasiness. He reached Dan’s house ten minutes early and Dan seemed mildly surprised.   
“Where’s your baggage?” Dan asked, as he let him in.   
Eric wanted to ask what he was talking about before he realized Dan had been talking about his football kit. “Since we’ll be going for the film afterwards, I figured I should leave it back today,”   
“See, you’re already getting smarter,” teased Dan, prompting Eric to smack him on the back lightly.   
Dan decided to move to a new unit today, something Eric’s class hadn’t started yet. Dan claimed that it was compatible with what they had been learning already so it was a good to get ahead of the class. Tried as he did, Eric could not focus on the lesson today, his mind ravaged by an awareness that had emerged only recently. Once the session was done, Eric bit his tongue.   
Though they were to take the tube to the cinema, Dan’s dad was going to pick up Dan afterwards. On the tube, Dan talked about how he spent the past Sunday touring London with his dad and his dad’s girlfriend, hence could not respond to his texts or missed calls. Then he talked about how Alexa was feuding with her former best friends and even though he sided with her, he could not help but feed on the entertainment value of it all. Eric knew that Dan did not talk much but once he got going, there was not an end to it.   
The film was a science-fiction dystopian epic adapted from a renowned set of graphic novels. For some reason, Eric guessed that Dan would be enthusiastic about it but Dan had no special inclination for the genre of the movie. When Eric asked him whether his interest towards science was a factor, Dan just shrugged and munched his popcorn.   
“The science is very much fictional. May sound obvious but it’s true. It’s all theoretical and convenient,” he said impassively. “But that’s not to say these aren’t good movies. They’re plenty of fun,”   
The movie began and Eric faced the screen. Only ten seconds in, he glanced at Dan. And then for the next hour, he could only hope he was not being too blatant by sneaking glimpses at him every two minutes. An hour passed and Eric knew they would not have a better chance. He felt sure about it and if what Alexa had said contained a sliver or truth, then it was possible that Dan might respond as well.   
Eric felt his lips trembling as he crept his hand forward. His chest rose, his eyes were dampening and he knew that he had never wanted to do anything more. His hand drifted close to Dan’s and when their skin touched, rockets launched into the sky. Not in the film but inside Eric’s head. Dan turned to Eric and grinned, but he did not let go of his hand. Instead, he plugged his fingers into the gaps in Eric’s hand and tightened his grip. They watched the rest of the movie in silence, holding hands. But really, Eric never watched the movie in the first place.   
After the cinema finished, the two waited outside. Dan had already phoned his father as soon as the credits rolled so they did not have much time to discuss what had occurred inside.   
“Did you like the movie?” asked Eric.   
“It was alright. Thought it was a bit predictable,”   
They were standing very close to each other. Eric did not know if that was how they stood all the time but today he could smell and admire Dan’s scent as it spilled onto him. “Do you want a pretzel or something?”  
“Not really hungry. That popcorn did me a number,” Dan laughed.   
Eric looked away, scanning their surroundings. A father and a daughter buying ice-cream. An older couple in their thirties bickering with each other. A grandmother and her grandson, presumably, sitting on the nearby bench. Eric looked back at Dan, realizing like they were just like everyone else. Accompanied by their own stories and lost in their own moment.   
“Um, Dan...” Eric gulped. “I, um, I...like you,” he uttered.   
Dan smiled widely. “I like you, too,”  
“I like you, as in...I have feelings for you,” he explained, his stomach crumbling under his nerves.   
“I have feelings for you, too,” he said, his face lit up.   
They lingered by the entrance for a little bit till Dan’s father pulled over beside them. Dan scuttled into the passenger seat and waved at Eric through the window. Eric waved back, knowing that the emotions that had seized his body would wreck him for the night, at least. Today had been the best day of his life and he knew that the madness had only begun.


	6. Chapter 6

Eric did not get a wink of sleep that night. Every time he closed his eyes, his heart palpitated and a vision of Dan wrenched its way onto his mind. In the middle of the night, he turned to his side for what felt like the hundredth time and compulsively reached out for his phone. He downloaded Dan’s photo from his profile; this way he would not have go back to it every two minutes.  
A smile spread across his face when he recalled what had happened in the evening. Dan was not only accepting of Eric’s feelings but he returned it too. He saw Eric the same way Eric saw him. He felt the same onrush of butterflies in his stomach that Eric did. He smiled at Eric when Eric smiled at him.  
Eric could not count the minutes down to the morning faster. Every minute felt like a tedious stretch keeping him from meeting Dan. Eric placed his finger on his lip as he stared at the photo. How could the subject of such an awkward, shoddy photo be so gorgeous in real life? Eric wondered if Dan was awake at this hour, thinking about him as intensely as Eric was.  
Probably not. Perhaps his feelings for Eric were not as potent. Perhaps his anger over him for what happened at the party had not subsided completely. Perhaps he only said he felt the same way because he did not want to hurt Eric’s feelings. Eric knew that there was not a chance he was going to be able to still himself to sleep unless his qualms were allayed. He turned the lamp by the bed for what was the first time in a immeasurably long time and composed a message for Dan.  
Hey, you up?  
His insides coiled as he waited for a reply. He became certain that he had made a huge mistake; he not only admitted his crush on Dan but was now harassing him in the middle of the night. Dan might be livid if he woke up and saw a vacuous message from Eric.  
I am now, his response arrived in thirty minutes, out of which Eric might have spent two minutes sleeping.  
Eric scrambled to reply back. You mind if I ask you something?  
Yeah, what is it?  
Eric buried himself in his blanket and hesitated. Dan was going to think of him as a lame, desperate, annoying fucker, he knew it. But then again, he had to know, to sleep, to move forward, to think. Did you mean what you said today?  
He cringed as he sent it and then hid his phone under the pillow. It felt like his heart stopped beating before his phone buzzed shortly. Of course. Why are you even awake?  
Lol why are you? Eric smiled at his reply.  
I got up to pee, explained Dan.  
Eric was tinged with a bit of disappointment, finding out that Dan had not been naturally awake. Oh ok. Good night, see you tomorrow!  
Good morning I should say xx, Dan replied.  
Eric may have gotten another ten minutes of sleep before he was drawn out with more images of Dan. This time, the images scattered into scenarios that mingled with hallucinations and distorted into uneven dreams and Eric could not be gladder when the birds start cawing at the emanation of dawn and the new day, perhaps the first day of his entire life, sung at him.  
Eric spent thirty minutes in the shower, against the gripes of his brothers and his mother. He wanted to look and feel impeccable for Dan so he was smitten with the same sensations that had shaken Eric to the core. When he came out, Elliot whistled. “Having a long wank, weren’t you?”  
When his mother noticed that he had been dawdling in front of the mirror for an exorbitant amount of time, she poked her head in. “You alright, Eric?”  
“Yep,” he said curtly.  
She looked incredulous and strolled inside. “Ethan told me about a little crush,”  
Eric rumbled. “Goddamit, bastard couldn’t keep his gob tight,” He brushed through his hair once again.  
“Is this one going to be serious?” asked his mother. “I mean, will you at least be bringing her home?”  
Eric did not have the heart to even appear discomfited. Of course, his mother was going to think it was a girl. She was a regular church-goer, who believed in the word of the Bible and the principles preached by her saviour. She mingled with subdued fanatics who had submitted their life to their arbitrary faith. Pre-marital sex, adultery or divorce was the least of the problems but homosexuality? Well, that was the real sin.  
“I mean, I’m not asking you to bring me a daughter-in-law but it’d be nice, you know. You haven’t yet been spoilt by the same disease like your brothers,”  
Eric decided that this was the best time to hightail it out of their house. He grabbed his backpack and his football kit and kissed his mother on the cheek. “There is no girl here, okay? Ethan’s been trying out his horrific deductive skills,”  
Eric jogged to school as fast as he could as he wanted to be there at the gate to see Dan. He did not know if he was early enough but he would not budge till the class bell rang. It helped that people passing him talked to him for a few sentences or so. At least the wait was not dragging. Finally, he saw a dark-haired, thin figure streaming towards the school. Eric felt the twist in his stomach.  
Dan approached him with a radiant countenance. “What are you doing here?”  
“Um, I was...” Eric looked down, nipping at his lip. “I was waiting for you,”  
Dan chuckled. “You shouldn’t have. What if I chose to bunk school?”  
“You’d never bunk school,”  
They entered the campus. Talking to Dan was not only easy but it was relieving. Eric felt the impatience that had been lacerating his body drain out and his heart slowed. It was simply pleasant; there was no other way to put it.  
“I might get my marks back today. For that test,”  
“You’ll pass. I have enough faith,” Dan said, as they began ambling through the hallway.  
“I manage to fuck up quite a lot, actually,”  
Dan winkled his forehead. “Give me one example,”  
“Sending Ava after you?” posited Eric.  
Dan grinned reluctantly. “I forgave you the minute you held my hand yesterday,”  
“You didn’t mind, did you?”  
“Of course not. You’re, like, the coolest bloke around. Who would mind?”  
They halted in front of a classroom on the second floor. Eric touched Dan’s arm for three seconds and said goodbye. They did not make plans to meet again but the feel of Dan’s skin had possibly been etched onto Eric’s hand and he had that to relish for the rest of the day. 

 

At lunch, Dan found Alexa and the two skittered with their trays to the nearest table. She had seemed outrageously excited over text but in reality, she seemed a bit sceptical. “Are you sure he wasn’t, like, waiting for one of his other mates who were just tardy?”  
“He seemed genuine,” said Dan, as he ate his sandwich.  
“But guys like him always seem genuine. That’s how you know they’re smooth,” she reasoned.  
There was always the possibility of Eric having constructed this whole relationship for his own nefarious amusement. There was also the possibility of Eric overcompensating for what he did at the party. But Dan did not want to dwell on the hypothetical when the proof had been relayed to him in completely rational terms.  
Eric Bunton had feelings for him. Feelings that were imparted through holding hands in the theatre. Feelings that flashed in the late-night texts. Feelings that prompted him to wait for Dan earlier in the morning. Feelings that were for Dan and no one but Dan. It was too easy to waft among the ecstasy of having his feelings reciprocated but lurking beneath the dream was the gravitas of having the most popular boy in school like him romantically. Eric could very well drop him lest it impacted his social capital. He could be sidelined against Eric’s football training. He could be squashed away in secret from Eric’s loud, invasive family.  
However, Dan let his apprehensions fade. Going higher would certainly amplify the pain if he fell but the feeling was worth it. During English, he chose to sit at the back once again. This time, he knew that he had a relationship with Eric outside of the class so there was no need to sit together and draw attention or distraction. After the class was dismissed, he stopped by Eric’s table. “How’d you do?” he asked.  
“74%,” Eric said. “That’s my personal best,”  
“Pretty soon you’re going to be acing through maths. Just one more thing off your list,”  
Dan loved that Eric was talking to him freely, even though his friends were next to him, immersed in their own topics. He looked irresistibly cute, his eyes glinting up at him. “It’s all because of you. Being all smart, giving me notes all the time,”  
“Yeah. That’s what tutors are supposed to do,” laughed Dan.  
“Still. You should take the credit,” said Eric. “Um, do you wanna...hang out at mine’s after school today?”  
Dan almost said yes before he remembered Alexa was taking him to some debating social for free snacks and pop. “Sorry. I can’t. I’ll be free later, though. How about seven?”  
“Yeah,” Eric nodded. “That’s cool,”  
Dan stroked Eric’s thumb with his finger. “I’ll see you then,” 

Seeing that Dan would only be able to meet late in the evening today, Eric decided to attend early training. He was changing into his uniform when Oscar tapped him on the shoulder and notified him of a girl asking for him outside. “You got to throw a few of them my way, mate!” he said, as Dan waddled out.  
As it turned out, it was not Laura or Alicia or any of the sassy women he had made a habit of courting; it was Alexa, Dan’s best friend. Eric frowned. Was she a messenger for Dan? Because maybe he was too polite to cancel the evening plan in person. Or had something happened to Dan, like he had gone missing or gotten hurt? Eric could not even begin to think about something like that.  
“You look thrilled to see me,” Alexa said, leaning against the wall. Unlike most girls who had hunted him in the past, she stood at a distance and refused to lock eyes. It was refreshing yet alarming, as the context of her presence was still a riddle.  
“Is everything okay? Is Dan okay?”  
“He’s fine. I’ll be taking him to a social actually,”  
Eric nodded, feeling a bit relieved. At least there was a substantial reason for Dan to delay their hangout at Eric’s house.  
“It’ll be good for him; he will meet new people, make friends, find his calling,” she said but the insouciance in her voice was starting to come across as strangely confrontational.  
Eric raised his eyebrow. “What is it?”  
“What is what?”  
“Why are you here?”  
Finally, she turned to look at him and in her unfaltering gaze ran the flare of curbed fury. “To tell you that you better not be fucking around,”  
With a shaky voice, he asked, “With Dan?”  
“A star footie player like you crushing on a geeksicle like him? Forgive me but that sounds a dump of shite,” she spit. “What’s the plan? You’re going to record him taking his pants off for you, record it on the phone and go viral on Facebook? Or you’d want to invite him to your house for a rendezvous but your brothers are in ambush with their hockey sticks? You just woke up one morning and felt gay, is that it? Or did you feel gay right after I implied that he was?”  
Eric gulped. Frankly he could believe what was spewing out of her mouth, not because it was frightening and harsh but because all of the above scenarios were plausible and would not seem out of line in any school environment. Her participation in the debating circle was indeed justified, as her points were carved in truth, logic and experience. He would not be the first guy to take advantage of, ridicule or simply jeopardize the life of a gay kid.  
Yet he had to at least try to defend his feelings, as sudden and unlike they were. “I don’t know anything but that I like him and would never hurt him,”  
“Real convincing, Bunton,” she said sarcastically. “Be very, very careful. You can’t lie and get away with me,”  
She strutted away and Eric stood there, a bit stunned but a lot terrified. If Dan possessed friends like her, then he had nothing to worry about. Eric went back inside the changing room and put on his shoes. Paul asked him, as he was pulling his socks tight, “She looked pissed, did ya cheat on her or something?”  
Eric shook his head. “No human with half an ounce of a brain would do that to her, Paul,”

 

At first, Dan did not even bother making conversation. He rushed to the food table, which was lined with cakes, candy, crisps, pop, chocolate and more. Alexa was socializing with a few of her fellow debaters, most of them well-dressed, articulate and exhibiting remarkable posture and politeness. As Dan was filling his plate with crisps, he came upon another guy sweeping down food onto his plate unabashedly.  
“Do you plan to leave any for others?” asked Dan, observing the guy’s actions.  
“By others, do you mean yourself?”  
Dan grinned. “I don’t know about you but I came exclusively for the food,”  
“Shocker,”  
Felipe, as he introduced himself, was the vice-president of the Debating Circle and was entitled to every crump on the table. “Pizzas are on their way, too,” he informed, as he walked with Dan to the corner of the room.  
“Shouldn’t you be mingling with your society?” Dan said, as he slurped his drink from the cup.  
“These are feisty politicians in the making. I figured I’d keep my distance,”  
Dan laughed, as he bit into his chocolate cake. “So you aren’t a feisty politician?”  
“I’m more of a science guy,”  
Dan widened his eyes. “Me too!”  
“Cool,” He seemed unfazed by Dan’s response. “You in the Science Club?”  
Dan shook his head.  
“Oh well. Do I leave the invitation at your door or do you want to come to a meeting?”  
Of course, Dan would have loved to. But up crept the fears of meeting new people, making friends or finding his calling; he would have to branch out into the network and bond with people. He would have to stand up and vocalize his ideas. He would have to mingle and open up, he would have to learn and divulge and he would have to be confident. He would have to endeavour to keep his sexuality shrouded, to keep his romantic interests aside in favour of banal pretensions.  
“I dunno...”  
“That sounds a lot like a yes. So I’ll see you next Tuesday,”  
Dan figured his lack of resolution worked against his intentions but maybe he needed someone to drive him through. They exchanged numbers and shook hands once again. If every new person was as innocuous and interesting as Felipe, then Dan would not mind veering into the nebulous network of strangers. For his sake.  
Dan left the social later than he expected because Felipe was adept at sustaining a conversation. He reached Eric’s and reported to him on what had happened in the social. He also brought back two slices of pizza.  
Eric gorged into the slices as Dan gabbled. “And then he told me about this hydraulic fan he was constructing. The Expo is in like a month but he has already tested the model a few times. He showed me how the breakers in the rear actually operate on the accelerating power of the wind and the velocity it attains upon circumventing the machine. It’s amazing, plus the power is fed through the blower at the degree of...” he looked at Eric. “I’m an idiot, aren’t I?”  
“I’m the idiot here,” Eric said. “Not worthy of your deep cuts into science,”  
Dan laughed. “You think I should do it?”  
“Absolutely. You deserve to make friends who aren’t completely knobheads,” he said, his tone upset.  
Dan moved closer to Eric and put his hand on his leg. “You’re not a knobhead. I don’t like knobheads,”  
Eric grabbed Dan’s hand and placed it on his lips. Dan wriggled his toes, the feel of Eric’s warm, supple lips against his skin jolting through his body like a lightning strike. “I mean, you’re intelligent enough to figure out I liked guys,”  
Eric swallowed. He had Dan’s hand in his and they were sitting comfortably, resting their heads against the board, their bare feet up on the bed, Dan’s skin stirring against his. Was a thorough investigation of how they came to be so close necessary? Eric knew that it did not matter but he also knew that he did not lie to Dan under any circumstances.  
“Your friend Alexa told me,”  
Dan’s mouth slacked open.  
“She didn’t tell me, like, directly. But...” Eric paused. “Um, she said that you did not like girls. So I just...”  
Dan did not react; he began gnawing his lower lip in tension. “Sorry,” he said. “It just brings sore memories,”  
“I’m sorry,” Eric said. “I don’t want you to get mad at her. She wants you to be happy,”  
Dan grinned at Eric and then placed his forehead on his shoulder. “You make me happy,” He could have never imagined doing that to Eric a month ago, to get to be so close, to talk openly about his feelings, to allow himself to fall into the space of his infatuation and let it carry him through the air.  
Eric placed his arm around Dan’s shoulder, nudging him closer. The ends of his body tingled in excitement and he would try to remain in this position for as long as he could. “You make me happy, too,”  
Eventually they were able to disentangle from each other and Eric pulled up a video game he had found in Eddie’s room. He had already practiced playing this game countless times but Dan still managed to beat him effortlessly. He did not even boast or yell of his success; he just shrugged and smiled.  
Dan declined Mrs. Bunton’s invitation for dinner this time. His dad had reminded him over the phone that they were having Indian food and Dan had a bit of a weakness for that cuisine. Furthermore, he felt that he had a sound and content family now, especially with Michelle’s inclusion. Besides, he does not want to give the Buntons’ any strange ideas about the meaning of Eric and Dan’s relationship. Because he was yet to define it myself.  
“You’ll be free, right?” asked Eric as he waited with him at their door.  
Dan wanted to take the tube but his father had once again insisted to pick him up. Dan guessed it may have had to do with the consequences of the party and how Dan’s intoxication not only led to inappropriate behaviour his father gratefully chose to ignore but also a general spirit of unsafe recklessness that had to be checked.  
“Free?” Dan repeated, baffled. “You mean to text?”  
Eric nodded.  
“Of course! I’ve got an unlimited text plan for a reason,”  
“I’ll get annoying really quick,” alerted Eric, playing with Dan’s sleeves. “Like you’d wish to make a better excuse to rid me off,”  
“I’ll get working on it right away, then,”  
Jamie stopped his car by the house and rolled down the windows. Eric spotted Michelle sitting on the passenger seat, angrily poking the buttons on the car radio. Dan sat at the back and the car drove off.  
Michelle looked at Dan through the mirror. “Maharaja or Dawaat?”  
“What?” asked Dan.  
“For Indian? It’s my treat,”  
“She closed a deal today, so she’s a bit over her head,” Jamie mentioned, speeding up the car.  
“It doesn’t matter,” said Dan, looking out of the window.  
“You, my friend, need a culinary education,” Michelle smirked, as she crossed her legs.  
Dan was about to say something before his phone vibrated. If it was Alexa, he had decided that he was going to make her wait and drive her insane with his silence. The least she deserved for blabbing her mouth. But as he opened the text, he was overcome with joy. Hey!  
Dan chewed his lower lip and lunged into the phone to write a reply to Eric. Hey yourself.


	7. Chapter 7

Eric was becoming a disease in Dan’s life. Not in the sense that he was unpleasant, painful and induced a set of physical reactions but because he was becoming chronic and contagious. And of course, he did induce a set of physical reactions in Dan. 

He wouldn’t stop texting. Dan was beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed, mostly because he has never had something other than his dad to check up on him constantly. Every morning, there would be a ‘Good Morning x’ text waiting for him on his phone. And of course, Dan’s fingers dashed across the screen to launch a quick reply. By the time, he got to his breakfast table; fifteen messages between the two had already been exchanged. 

“You’re being safe, right?” asked Michelle, her tone more solemn than usual. She placed a grape in her mouth and raised her eyebrows. “Like, if you knock up some Southsider, that’s goodbye to your models of stars and sun,” 

Dan set aside his phone and bowed his head. 

“Aaah, does that make ya feel awkward? Well, it should,” she smirked. 

He couldn’t wait to leave the table and head to school. At school, Eric was waiting for him at the gate, looking hollow without his football kit. They made plans to hang out at the library after school and Eric saw Dan off at his first class. They wouldn’t touch, of course, for fear of causing suspicion among the public but Dan was still sure to reel in every particle of Eric’s scent. 

During the lunch break, Dan watched Eric grab food with his friends and wondered whether Eric would ever sit with him. The quick second of brooding was replaced by the realization that he was fortunate to have Eric spend time with him at all. Even Alexa brought up her concerns, as they were eating. 

“So, like, what are you guys?” she asked, her brows furrowed. 

Dan shrugged and chewed his vegetables. “We’re friends,”

“Really?” She seemed unconvinced. 

Dan blushed. It still hadn’t settled with him that an actual guy revealed that he had feelings for him. “It doesn’t matter, okay? I just like him,” 

“Alright, if that’s all that matters,” she smirked. 

Of course it was not the only thing that mattered. Wacky, profound thoughts circled him at every moment, from the truth about Eric’s sexual orientation to the possibility of being outed in school, to disappointing his dad, to losing his friendship with Alexa. So much could be turned against him. 

He and Eric were just twenty minutes into their study session at the library when Eric’s foot brushed against his under the table. Dan assumed it was not deliberate but Eric grinned. 

“What’s wrong?” asked Dan unsuspectingly. 

“Nothing,”

Eric’s grin relayed otherwise. Dan did not know how to interpret it in this context but were Eric flashing this grin to another girl, Dan would ascertain it to be flirty. But he was self-aware to understand that his calculations were conducted through a lens of his helpless crush on Eric, and really, might not mean anything. 

For the next few minutes, pens dashed across paper, feet shuffled in the hallway and Eric’s musky scent floated over to Dan, capturing him in a knot between control and sensation. Eric requested Dan’s laptop so he could begin researching for his upcoming paper on the WWII. Dan did not think much of it as he typed in his password and handed over the laptop, but only ten minutes later when Eric tapped on his shoulder with a look of amusement did Dan realize what he could have done carelessly. 

“What is First Few of May?”

It sounded ten times more ridiculous than what Dan had feared. He considered lying but Eric had pulled up the cover of the anime of the screen. Two animated male characters were lying on a bed, in each other’s arms, surrounded by a colourful assortment of flowers, looking up to the frame. 

Dan grabbed the laptop from Eric and shut it haphazardly, his face deepening into a hollow of pink. “It’s nothing, it’s nothing...it’s not...” he stammered. 

“C’mon,” Eric grinned. “I don’t care what...”

Dan saw that Eric was not jeering at him, nor did he have the intention to; he was simply curious. “It’s just an anime series I like,”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Eric inquired casually. 

Dan sighed and slid down the chair in shame. “The main characters are...gay,” 

Eric nodded but did not say anything; he was patient. He closed his books, leaned back. “Look, it’s just...” Dan mumbled in frustration. “There aren’t any movies or whatever with gay leads. Gay people are always used for shock value, or...comic relief, or just a girl’s best friend. They never matter. So when I was growing up, I too thought I didn’t matter,” he frowned. “So when I found this show, I finally found someone I can root for. I can relate to the characters and just...I dunno,” 

Eric smiled. “Is the show any good?”

Dan piped up. “Oh my god, it’s the best. The main character is a time-travelling agent funded by numerous military groups who’s supposed to reverse battles in favour of the paying group. Only when he goes back to the present, his world is significantly different than the one he left before. In one of the battles, he meets this soldier named Katsu and then...”

Eric chuckled. “Can I watch it?”

Dan widened his eyes. “What?” he said. “Um, yeah, yes, yes, of course. I can send you a link of the channel where....”

“No, I mean...” Eric clarified. “Can I watch with you?” He seemed a bit embarrassed to ask. 

“Yeah, I mean...of course you can but...” Dan sighed. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,”

“I want to, though,” 

Dan tried not to smile as he turned back to his work. They managed to push through their homework for the next two hours, albeit with secretive glances and their toes tapping under the table. Just as they were about to leave to go to Dan’s house, Eric got a call from home. He sprinted out of the library to receive it and came back with a sullen face. 

“I’ve gotta rush home. Ethan’s got into a fight with the Crocker cunts from the neighbourhood. They need me to get icepacks and stuff,”

“Oh absolutely. We’ll pick this up later,” Dan responded. 

“Really?” Eric couldn’t help but look dejected. 

“It’s fine, Eric. Just go,” 

Eric shoved all his papers and binders into his backpack and darted out of the library, his noisy departure summoning disturbed eyes from the people inside. 

Dan was not upset, per se, but he was certainly expecting a different course of events for the day. Prompted by Alexa’s query earlier in the day, Dan was hoping to raise this issue with Eric tonight. Not that it was essential to their functioning but it would have been nice to clarify what they meant to each other, or as Alexa put it, define their relationship. Walking back home, Dan kept creating scenarios of what could have happened if Eric went home with him today. Since they were supposed to have finished their homework at the library, they could dedicate the rest of their time to leisure. They would watch an episode of First Few of May and Eric would get completely hooked; he would be begging to see more. Then after having consumed four episodes without a break, they would open the windows and stare at each other, the night breeze slicing against their faces. And Dan would ask Eric the question that had been tingling in his mouth for over a couple weeks. Are you my boyfriend?

But his Thursday night wasn’t too much of a disappointment as Alexa paid him a visit in the evening and though they did not watch episodes of a Japanese anime, they stuffed themselves with crisps as they watched episodes of The Only Way is Essex. It was pure crap and they both knew it but it was mainly an estimated effort to turn their brain off as they loaded their tummies with garbage potatoes. 

“I think I’m going to get sick,” Alexa said, as she wedged in another crisp into her mouth. “Not to mention lose my figure,” 

“You have an amazing figure,” 

“Thanks. I’d totally snog you if you weren’t into lads,” she said straightforwardly. 

Dan rolled his eyes and shoved her away slightly. “Shut up,”

“What?” she raised her shoulders. “Is it a crime to find gay dudes attractive? I mean...have you seen Eric?”

“He’s not gay!” Dan insisted. 

“Of course he is. Didn’t he say he liked you?”

“I dunno. It’ just...he’s had so many girlfriends. You can’t just turn gay overnight,” 

This last sentence latched onto his mind for the remainder of the evening. Someone doesn’t just turn gay overnight. So Eric had to have been considering finding men attractive before or he was indeed under some kind of a mind control. Something was not right and the more Dan thought about it, the more he became certain of this possibility. 

It riled him to the extent that it was the only thing he could think about during his phone call with Eric. They did not normally talk on the phone as everything was shared through text but Eric was supposedly making up for lost time. He claimed to have already watched the first episodes of the anime and was heading into his third before getting some of questions answered. 

Out of nowhere, Dan asked him, “Are you gay?” He realized the frankness of the question might have been too harsh on Eric so he attempted to mitigate it. “I mean, I don’t want to put you in the spot....but I’ve been thinking about this. I don’t...” he gulped. “I don’t want to be...weird about this. It’s just...are you gay?”

Dan knew that he had lost his reason somewhere along the way. There was simply no way to dress his question up with logic or empathy; he simply wanted to know if Eric was gay. He knew that he was risking their relationship by asking this simple question, as it would lead Eric to analyze himself rather than just feel and be, but Dan had been hurt before and he wasn’t keen on getting hurt once again. A third suicide attempt would surely send him over the line. 

Eric took some time, each second injecting shots of tension into Dan’s core as he waited, clutching his phone to his ear, feeling the sweat rub against his ear onto the screen of the phone. He dug his nail onto his index finger and he could feel his throat drying up. This could very well be the moment that their friendship burns to the ground.  
“I...” The doubt effused through the line. “I don’t know...I haven’t thought about it,”

“Really?” The disappointment sprayed into the air around him. He slumped down and pouted. 

“But I know I really like you,” he sighed in exhaustion. “And I know I’ve said this before and you’d like better answers but that’s all I have figured out. I think you’re cute and I wanna be with you. Is that better?”

Judging from how his lips stretched across his mouth in an ecstatic smile, Dan would hope so. “Yes,”

“So let’s just take it as so you’re gay and I’m...bi?” he asked in confusion. 

Dan chuckled at the effort. “Sure, sure, we’ll go with that,”

Dan relaxed and situated himself on his bed. He lied down straight and stared at the ceiling, imagining Eric lying down next to him. “So I hope you aren’t too mad at me for ditching today. I really wanted to stay and watch the show with you,”

“Maybe you can come over on Friday. We don’t do homework, we just...”

“We stay in all the time,” Eric pointed out. “It’s getting warmer, so why don’t you and I go to the park tomorrow? Maybe you can get your laptop and we can watch it there?”  
“Yeah? Sure, I’d like that,”

Dan skipped dinner that night; when his dad knocked on his door to get him, he shook his head and lied that he wasn’t hungry that night, but really, he didn’t want a moment of pause between his conversations with Eric. Every word was a gift, every sound of his voice soothed him, and every laugh lifted him. 

Jamie was certainly perplexed by his son’s distractions, so much so that he brought it up as he and Michelle were doing the dishes that night. “You think he’s dating Alexa?”  
“That cheeky girl with the ponytail?” asked Michelle. She waved her hand in dismissal. “That girl’s betting on upperclassmen or pompous English professors, not your boy,”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jamie wrinkled his forehead, as he turned off the tap. 

“Someone who has more experience, I mean,” she clarified with a knowing smirk. 

Jamie elbowed her on her back lightly. “Shut up,”

“No offence, but that’s a good thing, I’d reckon. You don’t want him to turn out like you, do you? Not that I’d mind, of course...”’

Jamie bit his lip, as he leaned against the fridge. “You’re right, but it’s tough. I don’t want him partying or taking drugs but I also don’t want him to be alone. I don’t know, Michelle...”

Michelle wiped her hands with the kitchen towel and leaned closer to kiss him on the cheek. “Thankfully, I don’t have to worry about all this parenting business,”

==================================================================

 

Eric suggested a change of plans for Friday; instead of going to the park, he invited Dan to come watch him train at the pitch. Not only because he wanted to punch in a few hours at football, something he’s been neglecting since he’d started spending more time with Dan, but also because he wanted to impress Dan with his star-forward athletic skills that he believed was appealing to most people. Dan was working on his lab homework but did manage to show up with Alexa at the end for the final fifteen minutes in which Eric, thankfully, and with much perseverance, was able to score a volley in the 88th minute. Dan did not stand up or cheer but Eric noticed him smiling at the goal, which was all he needed to keep him going for the next ten minutes. 

After the game, Eric and his mates, Paul and Oscar, hobbled towards Dan and Alexa at the stands. Oscar seemed wildly interested in speaking to Alexa and positioned himself in such a manner that he was the only thing looking down at her. “How’d you like Eric’s goal there? Did ya see my assist?”

Dan giggled at Oscar’s overt attempt at a pick-up line. Alexa clasped her mouth and eyed Dan in reprimand. “It was alright, Oscar. Though the credit must go to Eric there, sweet skills you got there, the next Beckham, are you?”

“Only missing the fit popstar by his side, though,” Oscar said, as he snaked his arm around Eric’s neck and gripped him as a jest. 

“I don’t think I need a fit popstar to be like Beckham,” Eric said, grinning down at Dan, who licked his lips and looked down, fighting the urge to smile.

“Damn right,” Alexa added. “I’d much prefer it if you get someone smarter by your side. Someone who likes science and math, could perhaps do your taxes for you,”  
“When you’re a pro, you don’t need to do taxes,” Paul piped, causing the entire huddle to break out into laughter. 

After twenty or thirty minutes of socializing, Alexa and the boys decided to depart. Alexa kissed Dan on the cheek and raised her eyebrows cautiously at Dan before sauntering down the stands. Eric lied and told his friends that he wanted to spend more time working on his skills to compensate for the hours he missed and they took the excuse as well as they could. They waved goodbye and once confirming that the field was empty and nobody was in their proximity, Eric leaned down and hugged Dan. Dan’s inherent smell flowed into Eric’s consciousness and he decided that he could probably live with that scent for the rest of his life. 

They settled on the grass as the sun began slanting with the day. As Dan booted his laptop, Eric gulped down water from his bottle and rested his head on Dan’s shoulder. They watched the first two episodes holding each other’s hands, taking turns laying on each other’s laps and just having some part of their body in contact with each other. Eric wouldn’t have it any other way. 

After his battery died out, Dan put his laptop aside and the two flopped down on their backs and faced the glittering sky above them. 

“I’m so glad it’s not raining,” Dan said, grabbing on the grass around him. 

“Yet,” Eric corrected. “Even if it was, I’d probably invite you back home. Mum’s been badgering me again to invite you for dinner,”

Dan grinned. “I’d love to, but Dad likes having me home. Completes his makeshift family, I guess,” 

“It’s still a real family,” Eric said. “Do you like Michelle?”

“She’s unlike any other woman he’s been with and he hasn’t been with too many but still...she is honest and straight that...maybe it’s a good thing for him. To know what he’s getting into,”

“You’re a really thoughtful son, way more than me. I couldn’t give a rat arse about what my mum’s doing,”

“It’s because...well, I feel guilty,”

“Why?” Eric nudged closer to Dan and began drawing circles on his shoulder. Dan was facing upwards but Eric has turned sideways towards Dan. 

“He doesn’t talk about it himself...but my dad had a horrible time when I was born. He didn’t date for another five years; he was so devastated by taking care of me and being the best dad ever and just...not trusting women at all,” Dan sighed. “I just want my life to be worth it, so that he feels proud of me and doesn’t regret anything. If he learns that I’m gay...it could all be for nothing,”

Eric couldn’t stop gazing at Dan’s lips as they swayed with his pouring words. “I don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t be proud of you,”

Dan turned to Eric so they faced each other and no one. The connection that had been drawn between their respective eyes was forceful, almost substantial in nature. Eric licked his lip and wondered if he should be the one to initiate what was inevitably on the horizon. His heart bounced against his chest and the desire tugged down to his fingernails. 

Eric closed his eyes and went for it. He didn’t know where his lips were going but until they struck the soft lips of Dan, he couldn’t breathe. He drew back in two seconds, even though those two seconds were perhaps the most pleasurable two seconds of his life. He opened his eyes to gauge the moment. Dan was smiling and this time, he reached forward and kissed Eric. 

The next five minutes were of blurs and silences, breathing and nipping, tugging and pulling. Finally, Dan wiped his lips with his wrist and laughed. “That was my first kiss, by the way,” 

Eric flinched self-consciously. “Was it good?”

“It was everything I’d wanted it to be. You know, since the very first day I saw you in English,”

Eric smiled and thought back to the time. “You were so scared,”

“Being a gay new kid is tough,” Dan said, and Eric pulled him closer into his arms. “I mean...I’ve been bullied before. It wouldn’t have surprised me,”

“I’d never bully you, baby,”

Dan lifted his eyebrows and looked amused. “Baby?”

Eric flushed. “You know what I mean,”

“No, I don’t,” Dan replied, smirking. 

Eric slapped his knuckles against Dan’s scalp. “Shut up. If I can kiss you, I can call you baby,” 

“I see,” Dan nodded. “Well, then, baby, kiss me again,”

Eric did and Dan did and Eric did and Dan did and they both did till they were exhausted so they chatted some. Then they regained their energy and kissed more. They laughed more, and kissed more. And Eric felt like he just landed into a new world but only he had his entire life to discover it.


	8. Chapter 8

aEric: Good Morning my honey bunny poppy  
Dan: Seriously?  
Dan: Fine, good morning, my sweety muffin pie  
Eric: I could get used to this  
Dan: I could get used to your lips  
Eric: wow wow so direct  
Dan: look who’s talking. You waited three weeks to kiss me  
Eric: hey hey you could’ve made the move too  
Dan: I would’ve but

 

“C’mon, Dan, listen to me,” Jamie ordered, tapping his spoon onto the wooden table, shaking Dan off text immersion. “If there is a break-in, you grab your phone and hide underneath the bed...”

“Your boy isn’t a little cunt. Listen, if there is a break-in, you take a knife...”

“Language, Michelle,” Jamie emphasized, shaking his head. “But if there is seriously a break-in, you go to Michelle’s room and she’ll protect you,”

“Hey hey hey, I don’t want a burden,”

Dan lowered his head back to his phone. Jamie was going on a business trip over the weekend and was going to entrust Michelle into being his son’s two-day guardian. It was not his first time leaving his son overnight but it was definitely his first time in a new city, his first time since he decided to straighten his act and be a good father, his first time trusting a new girlfriend with his son. So it was safe to say that he was, at the least, a bit nervous for the coming weekend. Furthermore, he decided to test Michelle’s competence by asking her to give Dan a lift to school. 

“If she doesn’t crash the car, that’ll be a pass,” added Jamie, as he kissed both his son and his girlfriend goodbye. 

During the ride, Michelle noted not only Dan’s continued absorption into his phone but also the line of hickeys on his neck. “You sure you don’t mind your friends seeing the seven lights on your neck?”

Dan flushed and rushed to cover the marks, but Michelle had seen enough to begin on the ribbing. “I’m not sure a pound of make-up would do good in blotching that out, but I can try...”

“Please, Michelle,”

“Fine, fine, I won’t tell your dad. But if he’s one brain cell in him, he should’ve figured in the morning. Oh well,”

She rubbed a handful of concealer on him as he sat uncomfortably with a protruding neck. “Looks like the girl who did this has daddy issues,”

“How can you tell?”

She leaned back and smiled. “This is Croydon. Who doesn’t have daddy issues?”

At school, Eric was waiting for him at their usual spot and Dan had expected it. Now that he knew he could kiss him, he wanted to do it as soon as he laid his eyes on him but knew that they would have to wait. They made a similar plan as they had on Friday, giving them enough room to get their work done but having the entire football pitch to themselves for the night. 

It turned out a fresh set of hickeys were being imprinted on Dan’s neck that night and he wasn’t so sure that Michelle would want to roll more makeup on him.   
“You know, Michelle had to help me cover it up in the morning,” Dan mentioned, once they decided to breathe in the cool air instead of each other. “It looked like I had some kind of a disease or something,”

Eric shrugged. “I could keep kissing you for hours,”

Dan smiled and circled his arms around Eric’s neck, tugging his head down for another string of kisses. During one of their breaks, Eric grabbed Dan’s hand and placed his fingers on his lips. “Hey, I was thinking...Dad’s going on a business trip this weekend. Michelle’s supposed to be at home but she’s laxed...so...” he hesitated. “Do you want to go somewhere fun?” he proposed suggestively. 

Eric kissed his hand. “What do you have in mind?”

“How about a gay club?”

Eric raised his eyebrows. 

“There’s this place not too close but not too far away, I’ve been researching it online and we could just take the bus there,” Upon noting Eric’s silence, Dan said desperately, “We won’t have to hide or sneak away. Even if it’s only for a couple of hours, it’ll just be me and you,”

Eric kissed him on the cheek. “Sure. I wasn’t going to say no; I was just thinking about the amount of cologne I might have to spray on to fit in there,” 

Dan laughed and they snuggled closer, their eyes drilling into each other. “You’d smell nice whatever you wear,”

“Really?” said Eric. “Even when I haven’t showered for over a week,”

Dan wrinkled his forehead. “Maybe...no, I take that back. That’s gross,”

Eric laughed, pecked Dan on the lips and laughed some more. 

 

Michelle poured the wine into her glass. Not that Jamie’s flat wasn’t already quiet enough with only two people residing here full-time but it felt even more serene on this particular night. The sun was sliding off the sky and she moved to the windows to gaze down at the street, where bands of people passed by intermittently or loitered by the corner shop, smoking and shoving against each other. Once she’d gulped down her first glass, she sashayed back to the kitchen to refill. 

That’s when Dan plodded into the hall and eyed Michelle’s bottle. “Can I help you?” asked Michelle. 

“Yeah, I...” Dan paused. “I got invited to go see one of my friend’s shows at this coffee shop. Eric insists that I go to the...”

Michelle grinned. “What kind of show?”

“Um, a concert...?” His response came forth as a question, however. 

“What genre?”

“Rock,”

“In a coffee shop?”

“Um,” Dan chewed his lower lip. “It’s not exactly a coffee stop but more like an underground garage area where...”

Michelle patted her lips against the glass; of course she knew that he was not planning to go to a rock concert in a coffee shop. But then again, she’d rather have the neat, spacious flat to herself than have the sulking kid loom over the area. Additionally, Dan did not seem to have many friends except that sparkly girl and the football jock so perhaps this was an ideal opportunity for him to accumulate a bit of social capital. 

“Alright, you can go,” Michelle nodded before a sliver of responsibility clamoured from within and a precaution piped out of her mouth. “But invite that mouthy girl,”

“Alexa?” 

“Yeah, her,” Michelle took another sip. She knew that boys of their age were likely not to cause too much ruckus in presence of another girl and certainly not in presence of Alexa.   
Dan agreed and retreated into his room to presumably get ready for their Friday night bender. Michelle had unloaded two scoops of chocolate ice cream into her bowl when Jamie called for the third time that evening. 

“I’m gonna turn my phone off yeah,” Michelle snapped, pausing the television. 

“Okay, sorry, sorry. I just wanted to check in...”

Michelle grunted. “Yeah, for the fortieth time?”

“Regardless...” Jamie said. “Before we head off to the conference, I thought I’d take the Codwells to dinner. Any place you can recommend?”

“Oh yes!” Michelle pulled up her knees to her chin. “Take him to Eno. The food is delicious, the atmosphere youthful and shiny, the food is a fusion between French-Japanese cuisine. The crackhead would love it,” 

“Okay, you sure?” 

“Yes. The street outside can get a bit loud but I think that can only work to your advantage,”

“Alright, then. I’ll call again later,”

“Don’t you dare,” 

And with that, Michelle turned off her phone and leaned back into the sofa, planning to wallow in luxury and space for the rest of the night. 

 

Eric looked unbelievably hot as he strode up to them at the street. Alexa and Dan had made an effort to look tidy yet inconspicuous but Eric wagered all his bets and decided to glamourize himself with a shiny, bomber jacket, slick black jeans with studs at the rear and shiny white shoes that could spotted from miles away. Even his hair was blown out and wavier than usual. 

It was hard not to swoon as he came closer, and Dan gave into a hug eventually. He kept it short enough, seeing as they were people passing by but he made sure to whisper into Eric’s ear, “You look ridiculously hot,”

Eric blushed and stepped over to hug Alexa, who similarly whispered into his ear. “You look like a gay dream,”

They jumped into an empty bus heading northside and sauntered into the back row. “But seriously, you just have these kind of pants lying around?” asked Dan, stroking the fabric of Eric’s pants around his knee. 

“They belong to Elliot,”

“I forgot how convenient it is to have three older brothers,”

“Yeah, convenient considering all their things smell like shite,” said Alexa. She sat on the other side of Dan, her legs spread out against the seat in front. “Once I borrowed Nico’s beanie and after having worn it the whole day, I took it off and found an orange peel inside,”

“You’d have to be super unaware to not catch it beforehand,” Eric pointed out, as a result of which he received a slap on the knee from Alexa. 

“But orange peel is one of the better things you can find in a boy’s hat, if you know what I mean,” said Dan, his eyes sparkling knowingly. 

Alexa waved her hand and grimaced. “You sick bastards,” she said, to which Dan and Eric laughed. 

As the bus turned the corner of Peckham, Dan turned his head to the window. His heart sped up. They got off a few minutes later and Dan immediately grabbed Eric’s hand. Eric smiled and allowed himself to be led by Dan. The trees and the posts in the street were adorned with lights; the bar heads and doors displayed rainbow flags and banners, and music pumped through all spaces. Throngs of people flittered in either direction, many dressed in drag or equally flamboyant clothing. Dan took it all in with utter fascination, his heart filling up in spades. He reached up and kissed Eric out of pure release. 

“Which one’s ours?” Alexa said, pointing at the strip of bars and clubs. 

“Caper,” Dan squinted down at the end of the street, where their club was surrounded by lines of people. “Looks like we’re going to have to wait a while,”

“As long as it’s with you, baby,” Eric said, pulling Dan into his arms, as they settled into the end of the line. 

“You two make me sick,” said Alexa with a cringe, but she pulled out her phone to take a photo of the two of them. Dan groaned and hid his face behind Eric’s jacket, even though Eric flashed the widest smile he could at the camera. The line drifted along and the trip uptown was already worth it. 

“One from this phone,” Eric handed his phone over to Alexa because he knew that it’d be even nicer to have a wallpaper of the two of them together rather than a old Facebook photo of Dan. 

Alexa held up the phone and focused on the couple. But she continued holding it, so Eric realized she was taking a video. “C’mon, Alexa, don’t,” he said, shaking his head casually. 

Dan peeked out. “Are you taking a video?”

“So my gentlemen, how’re you feeling today?”

“Turn it off!” Dan insisted, as he tried to shake into Alexa. 

“So not optimal, I would assume,” she said, as she shifted on an axis to catch the surroundings on camera. “What about you, Eric Bunton?”

“I’m feeling alright. Here at a wonderful place with a wonderful guy,” 

“Ugh,” Alexa rolled her eyes. “Any chance I find myself a straightey here,”

“Maybe if you get them drunk enough,” Dan quipped. 

Alexa rotated to film the restaurant across as Dan and Eric continued cuddling. The joint was teeming with people as usual and most people were standing up, which was a bit unusual for a restaurant. What Alexa loved most about the area is that people were dressed in the most ridiculous outfits, with the most odd makeup and accessories and nobody particularly cared. Everybody had drowned themselves into the allure of anonymity and let themselves feel. However, as she zoomed into the crowd at Eno, the restaurant in question, she thought she spotted a familiar face, but could not get enough to confirm her suspicion. 

“What’d you tell your family about your plans tonight?” asked Dan as they plodded forward. 

“Playing the new COD at your house,”

“That’s better than my excuse: watching a rock concert in a coffee shop,” 

Eric laughed. That’s when Alexa gasped and they all turned to the right only to behold Dan’s dad, Jamie, stride toward them furiously. 

“Dad?” Dan croaked, his face paling. 

“How’d he know...”

“I saw him at that...”   
Alexa couldn’t finish her sentence as Jamie tugged onto Dan’s sweater and attempted to pull him out of the line. “What the hell are you doing here, Dan? Whose idea was this?”  
“Mr. Forster, it’s not...” Eric began to protest.   
“Shut the fuck up,” he shouted at Eric and turned back to Dan. “We’re going home right now! Do you know what kind of a place this is?”   
Dan immediately started tearing up. “Dad, I...please don’t,”  
“Enough, son. Not a single word right now,”   
Dan stop resisting and let himself get dragged away by his father. Eric stood in place, frozen in horror. Alexa stepped forward and gave him a consoling hug. “It’ll be fine,” 

Eric frowned, as he saw Jamie hauling his son out of the street, in fury and disappointment. He lowered his head and wondered how stupid he was to believe that their night could have gone as idyllic as he had imagined. Fate always had a way of destruction. 

 

Dan refused to speak or eat. He lumbered into his room and obscured himself underneath his covers. He had a number of texts from Eric but he had no wish to read them. Outside his room, Jamie and Michelle were arguing over what Michelle had let happen for her own pleasure. Eventually, Michelle banged the door on her way out. When Jamie entered Dan’s room, Dan pretended to be asleep. His body was turned away from the door and his head was covered. 

“Danny, you asleep?”

Dan remained silent. 

“I don’t know if you are or not, but I want you to take some time to think what you tried to do today,” 

And with that, he turned the lights off and left. Indeed, Dan did some thinking that night but not over the events that transpired earlier but his whole life, in one sense. His dad could kick him out tomorrow. His dad could outright reject his homosexuality. He could attribute it to a phase. He could send him to a ‘therapist’. 

He thought back to his life in Coventry and how his classmates at school had haunted and tortured him. They used to dunk him in the swimming pool and let him writhe underneath till they felt he could kick out. They would take their drinks and pour it down his shirt. They would tell him to die. And he listened to them; the two suicide attempts were in evidence of that. 

He experienced a horrific nightmare of being left alone in the street and running all over the place to find some form of human existence. All the doors were closed, all the lights were broken and shadows slid behind him. He woke up in a cold sweat and began crying. When would the pain be over? Would a third try seal the deal for once and for all?

He was the only son and yet, he still managed to disappoint his father. His father, who had done so much for him, who had moved heaven and earth to give him a good life, was going to be shattered by this revelation. All fathers want a strong, capable son and all Jamie got was a weak, gay kid who hated himself. 

When Dan woke up next morning, he wanted to believe last night was a dream, not because it was close to being so perfect but because he was not ready to let it be his reality. Once he realized it did occur and now he had to face the consequences, he decided not to leave the bed. He would die in the bed if necessary, but he could not get himself to his feet to talk to his head. 

Jamie waited for his son to rise all morning but he wouldn’t. The house felt emptier without Michelle but he did not want her to witness and give her comments at what would surely be a heated interaction. Finally, in the afternoon, he went to his son’s room, drew open the curtains, let the sun perforate through and nudged his son up. His son was awake, and there were tear stains on his face. 

“Son, there’s no point in being sad right now. You know you’re going to have to get up and talk to me,” he said as he took a seat on the bed. 

Dan looked down. “I’m sorry...dad,”

“We all did dumb stuff when we’re young. Hell, I knocked the barrister’s daughter up,”

“I can’t help it,” Dan cried. “I can’t help being gay,”

“Gay?” Jamie exclaimed, as Dan looked up to gauge his father’s reaction. “You think I’m mad because you’re gay?” 

Dan blinked as other set of tears rolled down his face. 

“Oh honey,” Jamie said, as he shifted closer and put his arm around his son. “I was mad because you were at a place you shouldn’t have been at. You’re only 15; you think they’d have let you in?”

“I just wanted to be myself,”

“You can be yourself anywhere in the world, Dan. But you don’t necessarily have to be at an adult club with drinking, drugs and soliciting when you’re this young, though,”

A moment of silence passed as Jamie rubbed his son’s neck. Dan cried into his father’s shoulder. “Are you going to kick me out?” he said, as he sobbed. 

“For being gay ?” Jamie chuckled. “There is no force in the entire world that can stop me from loving you as much as I can. It does not matter to me that you’re gay, son. I have loved you since the day you were handed to me in the hospital by the nurse and I haven’t wanted to let you go since,”

Dan’s sobs escalated but Jamie figured the nature of the crying had now changed. He knew that that they did not have too many one-on-one reflections and there was no better day than to have one today. 

“When your mum told me she was expecting you, I panicked. I was just your age, even a bit younger, I think. My whole life, which was then a blank slate sitting in front of me was now going to change. And I hated the pregnancy, to be honest. I didn’t go with her to any of the appointments, I didn’t take care of her at all. Your grandma suggested that I don’t bother with you at all; your mother was pretty enough, she could find another man to take care of herself and the baby,”

Jamie rested his chin on his son’s head and stroked his hair. “I considered it but when the day arrived and I was called to the hospital, I knew I had to give it a shot either way. I held you for the first time and my world flew off its axis and swivelled to another galaxy. You became my world in that one moment,” 

“When your mother told me that very night that she didn’t think she could be a mother, I did not react. Not because I did not expect her to leave like she did, but because I also did not care. I had you and that was the only thing that mattered to me that moment, Dan. You were the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Dan looked up at his head as layers of gratitude and emotions rolled over his face. He did not have words to convey at the moment. When he thought he’d be talking to his dad today, he had anticipated tears but not the kind that were flowing across his face, onto his pillows and his father’s shirt. 

“And I have to say that I couldn’t be prouder of the smart, kind, loving, caring, funny, compassionate, sensitive, capable young man you’ve become. And you deserve a boy as perfect as you are,” 

“Eric is perfect, Dad,”

“He may be, Dan. But for now, you’re my little boy and I want you to be safe and protected,”

Dan wrinkled his forehead; for all the emotional venting, it would be a shame if Jamie decided to impose some kind of a restriction at this moment. “What?”

“You can still see him, I promise. But we can’t let you have sleepovers anymore. You can’t close the door. There are rules I have to enforce, for you, Dan. For my baby,”

Dan sighed and hugged his dad. 

“I love you,” Jamie said, as he returned the hug with passion. “Give your Daddy a kiss,” He extended his cheek and Dan kissed him. “My sweet baby,”

As Jamie stood up and headed for the door, Dan immediately grabbed his phone and began writing a text to Eric. Jamie remarked, before shutting the door. “I didn’t realize you were such a player, though. Must be a genetic thing,”


End file.
